Economic activity status of London men aged 16 and over (2025 Q1)
Economic activity status of London women aged 16 and over (2025 Q1)
Last updated: September 2025
Next estimated update: November 2025
What’s this?
This indicator shows the labour market activity of all adult Londoners, split by sex. We can use it to see how many men and women in London are employed or not working, and the reasons for not working.
What does it tell us?
There are over 125,300 more men in work in London than women. Men who live in London are also more likely to be self-employed than women – 15% compared to 8%.
Women are significantly more likely to be economically inactive than men, with 36% of women not working and not looking for work compared to 24% of men. For some types of inactivity, women and men have very similar rates, including long-term sickness and temporary sickness.
However, women were significantly more likely to not be working because they were looking after the home or family, with 7% of women – 255,100 people – being homemakers compared to 29,600 or 0.8% of men. Noticeably more women (15%) were retired in London than men (12%).
See our Reasons for not Working indicator for more detail.
Want to know more?
If you want to explore this data in more depth, check the 'data source and notes' button on the above charts. This will tell you where the data comes from, where you may be able to dig deeper.