Living in the City of London: an EC2V Guide for Swappers

Be realistic: the City is not a family neighbourhood in the usual sense, and there are very few children living in the square mile. That said, there are primary options nearby. Prior Weston Primary School and St Gabriel's CofE Academy are both around half a mile away, as is Charterhouse Square School & Nursery.

Secondary choices within the square mile itself are thin. Most of the listings within a mile are tutoring and education programmes rather than mainstream schools, so families here usually look outward to neighbouring boroughs for secondary places.

On the plus side, Barbican Library is a short walk and Guildhall Library is barely a few minutes away, which helps with homework and rainy afternoons.

You will not need a car, and honestly you would struggle to justify one. Moorgate station is about a third of a mile away, with Liverpool Street, City Thameslink and Blackfriars all around half a mile. Between them you have mainline, underground and Thameslink services running north, south and out to the east and west.

Buses are just as easy. There are stops at Moorgate, Cannon Street, Monument and Fenchurch Street, all within about half a mile, so most of central London is one ride away.

Most of all, this is a walking place. Everything in this guide sits within a mile, and a lot of it within a quarter of a mile of EC2V.

Green space here comes in small pieces rather than big parks. St Mary Aldermanbury Garden is a two-minute walk, with St Mary Staining, the Churchyard of St John Zachary, Cleary Garden and Festival Gardens all within a quarter of a mile. They are little pockets of bench-and-tree calm rather than places for a proper kickabout.

For culture, the Barbican Centre and its cinemas are under half a mile away, and Everyman Broadgate is close too. That is a serious amount of film, music and art on your doorstep.

Shopping includes One New Change and The Royal Exchange, both a few minutes' walk. There are plenty of pubs, bars and late venues around Bank and Watling Street, though prices reflect the City postcode.

We do not have local employment figures for the square mile, so take this as a general picture rather than hard data. What is clear is that this is a working district first and foremost, with offices, outpatient clinics and health centres like Basinghall Bupa and the Cleveland Clinic Moorgate all within a few hundred metres.

The bigger advantage for anyone job-hunting is the transport. With Moorgate, Liverpool Street, Blackfriars and City Thameslink all within half a mile, commuting to almost any part of London is straightforward and often short.

There are also plenty of gyms, bars and shops nearby, which tend to be steady sources of hospitality and retail work.

Homes in the City are a mix, but social housing is a small slice of it and turnover is low. That is the single biggest thing to understand before you set your heart on a move here. Flats are the norm rather than houses, and outdoor space is usually shared or non-existent.

The population is heavily weighted towards working adults and people without children, which shapes the feel of the streets and the services around you.

On crime, police recorded about 2,648 offences within roughly a mile in July 2026, mostly other theft, theft from the person and violent crime. Those numbers are inflated by the huge daytime crowds passing through, but pickpocketing is a real, everyday risk worth taking seriously.