Sectors of the economy

Retail goods accounted for 4.2% of London’s output in 2018. Output and productivity have been growing, and faster than in the UK.

Working Paper 93 updates previous analysis looking at the economic contribution of London’s Architecture sector.

GLA Economics has produced a London Jobs series from 1971-2015 for sectors and boroughs. Working Paper 92 sets out the methodology used to develop a borough by sector employee jobs series, and the properties of this experimental series.

Working Paper 91 shows that in 2015 London exported £131.1 billion of goods and services. This was up from £126.4 billion in 2011. More than three-quarters (77 per cent) of this was exports of services.

Given the need to understand better the potential room requirements for disabled visitors, Working Paper 90 presents projections of the demand and supply for accessible hotel rooms in London up to 2041.

London’s creative industries represent a significant part of the capital’s economy. In 2015, GVA of the creative industries in London was estimated at £42.0 billion, accounting for an estimated 11.1 per cent of London’s total GVA, and for just under half (47.4 per cent) of the UK creative industries total.

London is the second most visited city in the world. Given the importance of tourism to London’s economy, London needs to ensure that it is able to meet the accommodation demands of tourists that want to visit the Capital.

Working Paper 88 sets out projections for the supply and demand of serviced visitor accommodation.

London’s architecture sector produced £1.7 billion in gross value added in 2015. That was broadly similar in size to the Civil Engineering and Postal & Courier Activities industries. In addition, the architecture sector has grown on average by 7.6 per cent per annum (in real terms) between 2009 and 2015, which was faster than the creative industries and London economy as a whole.

• this report provides an update on retail in London and its prospects for the future
• it discusses how London retailers have been impacted and responded to changing consumer behaviour and technological advances
• the report also look at what these adaptations may mean for the role retail plays in London, ranging from the employment it provides to the land it uses

• this paper provides a definition of the ‘Science and Technology’ category produced by ONS London statisticians
• in the ten years to 2013, there has been a rise of 129,800 ‘Science and Technology’ category jobs in the Greater South East, with London accounting for the majority of this
• the fastest growth in this period was in the Digital Technology sub-category

• in 2013, London received 16.8 million international visitors, 112.3 million overnight visits from GB residents and 261.7 million tourism day visits
• culture is a key reason for visitors to come to London and this paper derives an estimate of the economic impact attributable to cultural tourism
• it is estimated that in 2013, cultural tourism supported 80,000 jobs in London and was worth £3.2 billion in gross valued added

Through reading this publication you will:

• gain an understanding of how house prices are set in economics terms, how they are measured, and why the cost of housing matters for London’s economy and its residents
• see whether incomes and earnings in London have kept pace with the costs of home ownership in London, and see how affordability may be affected by future changes in interest rates
• find out about the drivers of demand for residential property in London, and how the supply of homes has responded to changing conditions

Following on from our latest working paper House prices in London: an economic analysis of London’s housing market, this seminar featured contributions from distinguished experts in this field and invited competing views on the impacts of housing on London’s wider economy.

This event was aimed at policy-makers, economic analysts, researchers and other stakeholders interested in understanding the causes and consequences of high house prices in London.

You can download the slides from the event on the House Prices in London seminar page.