The World's Most Expensive Cities Have Been Revealed. But Where Does London Rank?

Anyone who lives in London (or even visited recently) will know you don't get much bang for your buck. It may no longer be the least affordable in the UK, but the property market is still financially crippling for both renters and aspiring homeowners alike. That’s all before we even mention the cost of essentials, such as food and drink (£3.50 for a laughably tiny coffee? Standard).

However, according to new data, the cost of living in London is the lowest it’s been for 20 years, making it the cheapest of the world’s major global centres, The Guardian reported. The reason being Brexit, which led the value of sterling to drop by 15%.

Singapore has the highest cost of living in the world, according to this year’s Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) rankings, closely followed by Hong Kong, Zurich and Tokyo. Paris, New York and Copenhagen are also among the priciest cities, ranking in 8th, 9th and 10th respectively.

London, which ranks 24th, has been overtaken by cities in Australia and New Zealand, including Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland and Wellington, which all now find themselves in the top 20.

London is now cheaper than New York for the first time in 15 years, according to the EIU, and Manchester fell 25 places to 51st place – the steepest decline of any city this year, making it less expensive to live in than Beijing and on a par with Bangkok.

Brexit may not be great news for many Brits, particularly Londoners – the capital voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, after all – but it’s been good news for foreign visitors, who now enjoy cheaper prices. Meanwhile local residents, who earn their incomes in sterling, continue to struggle.

“While the declines mean that British cities are cheaper compared to their international peers, the rise in import prices caused by the weak pound will mean that locals won’t see their own shopping baskets falling in price,” the EIU said.

“In fact the opposite is likely to be true and, while UK cities fell down the ranking, local prices for the basket of goods surveyed have begun to creep back up,” said the EIU.

Anyone struggling with the cost of living in an expensive city may (or may not) want to consider Almaty in Kazakhstan, the cheapest city in the world, where bread is 70p a loaf, petrol is 40p a litre and cigarettes are 80p, reported The Guardian.

To calculate its ranking, the EIU compares the prices of 400 individual items across 160 products and services including food, drink, clothing, rents, transport and utility bills. It then converts these to US dollars and ranks each city above or below New York.

The most expensive cities in the world:
1. Singapore
2. Hong Kong
3. Zurich
4. Tokyo
5. Osaka
6. Seoul
7. Geneva
8. Paris
9. New York
10. Copenhagen
24. London
51. Manchester