Over 1,000 r/London-ers completed the 2018 ‘Census’. This page contains a summary of the results…

1,012 responses were recorded, vs. last year’s 1,336: slightly down on numbers, though last year’s post was stickied by mods.

There were various issues with the questions, of which I inherited most from last year’s Census by another user. I chose to inherit the majority of questions in order to preserve the ability to compare data between years.

If you would like to perform your own analysis, please get in touch and I will forward you the data.

Gender: according to the Census, the average r/London-er is still overwhelmingly male. The gender breakdown is remarkably similar to last year’s Census, which reported 25.3% female, and 74.2% male: both less than a percentage point different this year.

Age: 87.8% of respondents are between 17 and 35 years old, with the largest proportion being in the 22-30 year-old band. Next year, age bands will be tighter, in order to better dis-aggregate the results.

Sexual Orientation: Data is very similar to last year, with a small (but noticeable) reduction in the percentage of respondents identifying as heterosexual (straight) by approx. 2%.

Where were you born? 69% of respondents were born in the UK; and 12.8% were born in Europe. This is almost precisely the finding of last year’s Census.

This question will be changed next year; it was based largely on last year’s Census, which was conducted by another user. For example, ‘Australia’ is not a continent.

Highest level of education: If we add those who have completed a Bachelor’s and Master’s together (given that you almost always need an undergraduate degree in order to complete a postgraduate one), we see that a huge 69.8% of respondents have completed studies at university; well above the national average. A further 2.6% have completed a PhD, and 17.1% completed college or vocational training. A small minority of respondents have not completed any further or higher education.

Relationship Status: 43.1% of respondents have never married nor been in a civil partnership; i.e. have always been (at least formally) single.

How long have you lived in London? 21.8% of r/London-ers have lived in London their whole life, while 43.7% have been here for less than 5 years.

In which borough do you currently live? This year, Southwark and Lambeth have taken the top spots, pushing Tower Hamlets (last year’s most popular) to third position. Nearly 6% of participants do not live in London.

In which borough do you currently work or study? City of London and Westminster are the most common working locales again this year.

Do you work and/or study? 76.7% of respondents work full-time, while 16.5% study full-time.

Salary (yearly): 21.2% of respondents earn over £60,000.

Note: next year, more bands above £60k will be included; this was an oversight.

What is your housing situation? Over half of all respondents are renting privately.

Do you plan to stay in London long-term? i.e., beyond the next 3 years. A slim majority (55.2%) answered ‘yes’.

What is your favourite tube line? The Victoria line is a clear winner here, followed by the Jubilee. Waterloo and City is the least-favourite.

Primary modes of transport (up to 3): The tube maintains the top spot. DLR has increased significantly since last year’s results, as has Uber.

Which political party would you vote for in a General Election? r/London is dominated by Labour and Lib Dem voters, with only 7.8% of respondents declaring that they would vote for the Conservative party.

How did you vote in the EU Referendum? As expected, Remain has a strong majority here, with 63.2% of respondents voting that way. Only 5.2% voted leave, the other 31.6% not voting (mainly due to ineligibility).

How would you vote if another EU Referendum were called today? The Remain sentiment only increases with this question.

Tea or Coffee? The split is pretty even here. Coffee’s popularity has increased by approx 5% since last year, though.

How do you pronounce ‘scone’? The ‘scone as in cone’-ers have had a comeback this year, winning a small majority after last year’s defeat. It’s quite impressive how even the split is. Perhaps someone could run a cross-question analysis and see if this corresponds to income, place of birth, or any other question? I’m happy to supply the data!

How often do you visit r/London? A large proportion of respondents visit the subreddit daily, or at least multiple times a week.

Favourite London landmark: These two questions (favourite and most hated landmarks) generated a lot of unique responses, which I have not reproduced in the charts. To view all unique responses, you can request the dataset. St Paul’s was the most popular, with Tower Bridge a strong second place. There were also a few free-text responses, including:

Shard’s Sauron eye will always be there for you



Walkie Talkie (it’s the only place where you can’t see the Walkie Talkie)

Most hated London landmark: Surprisingly, there were 109 fewer responses to this question than the previous one, perhaps suggesting we’re not as negative as we are often portrayed! The Walkie Talkie and London Eye are clear winners here, followed by the Shard. Leicester Square got a lot of hate too, with M&M World encouraging some particularly angry responses! Here’s a couple…

M&M shop, it smells sh*t, it can’t even smell like proper chocolate, what a waste of space. I would say Madam Tussauds, but at least it works as some kind of fly paper for people with no taste so the actual museums aren’t full of people whinging.

M&Ms world (it’s not a landmark but apparently tourists think it is so yeah) (also M&Ms are all one flavour, why isn’t there a Skittles world so I can get all purple?!?!?!?).

A few other stand-out responses:

Generic glass box offices, especially in the City of London

Oxford St: the only street in London where people don’t walk like they’re in London

Floating Yodas

Thank you to all that participated in the 2018 r/London Census.

Notes:

The r/London Census 2018 is unofficial; i.e. no moderators are involved.

If you would like a copy of the data (in .csv format), please get in touch.