London’s cheapest pints: Cost of beer jumps as much as 10 per cent in two years

Drawn out of the office and into the City’s pubs by the springtime sun, Square Mile workers will face a bitter taste when they pay for their pints. 

The City of London is one of the 28 London boroughs where the cost of a pint has surged over the past two years, with the price in some areas having risen by nearly a pound, according to analysis of more than 100 London pubs.

City AM’s investigation, conducted in March, was based on a sample of popular draught beers – including Budweiser, Carlsberg, Peroni and Guinness – at pubs in every borough in the capital.

The analysis used data collected from four of the UK’s biggest pub operators – JD Wetherspoon, Greene King, Stonegate and Mitchells & Butlers – and compared prices between May 2024 and March 2026.

The average cost of a pint in London is now £5.77, the analysis found, up by more than six per cent since £5.43 in 2024. 

Average City pint £7.30

Workers in the City pay a premium of nearly £2 on that price, with the average pint in the Square Mile standing at £7.30, though prices can exceed an eye-watering £8 for Peroni, Asahi and Moretti.

Prices often vary by nearly £3 for the same beer served by the same operator, depending on the borough that the pub – and thirsty punter – is in, according to City AM’s analysis.

A pint of Guinness, for example, could cost as low as £3.50 in Brent but as much as £7.45 in Lambeth.

A pint of Italian lager Moretti could set a drinker back as much as £8.05 in Kensington and Chelsea, while the same punter could get a more than £2 discount if they took a trip out to Merton (£5.75).

Newham is the borough offering London’s cheapest pint, where the average price for a beer is £4.20. But, depending on the tipple and the watering hole, prices drop as low as £2.87 in the east London borough, as for a pint of Carlsberg in one Wetherspoon pub.

Newham is followed by Barking (£4.89) and Havering (£5.04) as the next-cheapest areas of the capital. 

Between 2024 and 2026, the price of a pint has fallen the most in Merton, where prices have dropped by 15 pence on average. The East-London borough is followed by Tower Hamlets (11p drop in price) and, surprisingly, leafy West-London area Wandsworth (7p fall).

Bargains up for grabs on London’s outskirts

Sam Cullen, author of London’s Lost Pubs, told City AM: “For the bargain hunters out there, the fact there are still pints available for under a fiver in certain London boroughs will come as a relief. 

“I certainly wasn’t expecting to see the price has actually fallen in some areas, including busy pub hotspots like Wandsworth and Tower Hamlets. As ever, the London pub scene never fails to surprise us.”

London’s most expensive borough for a pint is high-end borough Kensington and Chelsea, with an average of £7.75 for a beer.

The City of London, in second, is followed in third by Westminster, where politicians and hacks can settle their differences by moaning about the price of pints – at an average of £7.12.

While prices are levelling out and even falling in trendy areas like Tower Hamlets and Hackney (9p increase), the heftiest price increases come in areas on London’s fringes.

North-London borough Haringey is one of the boroughs where pint prices have inflated most, up by 75p, tied for first place with Kensington and Chelsea.

The second-highest increases are found in South-London town Croydon and the City of London (both 58p), followed by Barking and Dagenham (55p). 

Ben Guerin, creator of the “Is My Pub Fucked” tracker, told City AM the high increases in the outer boroughs risk depriving Londoners of discount pints. 

Pubs in these areas are facing the steepest increases in their business rate bills, Guerin said, with landlords also having to contend with rising wages and national insurance contributions.

Pub owners were locked in a fiery row with the Treasury at the end of last year, after changes to business rates made at the Budget caused higher bills for thousands of hospitality firms. 

Chancellor Rachel Reeves eventually handed landlords a £300m emergency package, but pub owners say they are still facing crippling employment costs.

There are fears pint prices could rise further still in the coming months as pub landlords wrestle with a surge in energy prices triggered by conflict in the Middle East.

‘Every cost moving against landlords’

Guerin said: “Pint prices aren’t rising because publicans are greedy. They’re rising because practically everything on a pub’s P&L that the government has a hand in has gone up at the same time.

“Barking sums it up. Second cheapest borough in London for a pint, and third fastest-rising. Thin margins, every cost moving against you.”

The price of a pint generally correlates with the cost of living in a given London borough, City AM found. 

Kensington (£1.1m average house price; £7.75 average pint), the City (£875,000; £7.30) and Westminster (£880,000; £7.12) are among the areas which conform to the trend, with all three areas’ high property prices correlating with more a more costly pint. 

Similarly, Barking and Dagenham (£354,000; £4.89), Newham (£406,000; £4.20) and Havering (£452,000; £5.04) offer some of the cheapest drinks and have some of London’s lowest house prices. 

East London borough Tower Hamlets offers a discount on the trend, where house prices ($464,000) are low but pints (£6.45) are not correspondingly cheap – with Canary Wharf likely pushing up the cost of beer.