Best London neighbourhoods for nightlife

London's nightlife is concentrated rather than spread evenly, and the areas at the top of this ranking — Shoreditch, Soho, Dalston, Camden and Brixton — are the places people travel to from across the city on Friday and Saturday nights. Living in one of them means walking home rather than planning a route back, which is the single biggest practical benefit of choosing a nightlife-first area.

The ranking combines nightlife scores with how lively an area feels, plus its food and café scene, so it favours places busy at every hour rather than places with one good club. It does not measure noise, and that is the trade-off every resident of these areas lives with. Bars close late, crowds spill onto streets, and deliveries and street cleaning start early. A flat on a side street, facing the back or on a high floor can make an enormous difference; so can visiting on a Saturday night before signing a tenancy.

Transport home matters as much as the venues. The Night Tube runs on Friday and Saturday nights on the Victoria, Jubilee, Central, Northern and Piccadilly lines, and the Overground runs a partial night service, which is why areas on those lines are easier to live in if you go out elsewhere. Areas served only by rail can be awkward after midnight, when night buses become the only option. If you want nightlife close by without living in the middle of it, look at quieter streets one stop away from the top-ranked areas rather than at the centres themselves.