A global city

London continues to score highly in a global context. Savills World Research ranked London 4^th in its corporate dynamic wealth index.

The London Growth Plan was developed by the Mayor and London councils and published in February 2025. It aims to restore London’s productivity growth to an average of 2% a year over the next decade, increasing London’s economy by £107bn by 2035 and helping to create 150,000 ‘good jobs’ by 2028. London’s key growth sectors are identified as:

• financial, professional, and business services
• creative industries
• experience economy
• international education
• life sciences
• climate and nature

The Growth Plan recognises that the shape of London’s economy is changing, with the emergence of new economic clusters on the fringe of an expanding city centre, such as King’s Cross, White City and Whitechapel. It sets out the ambition to use all its levers to make sure that clusters have the right infrastructure, buildings, public spaces and housing to support their growth.

What jobs and where?

Towards a new London Plan recognises that planning has an important role to support the development of key growth sectors. The consultation sets out that economic activity takes place in a variety of locations, including the Central Activities Zone (CAZ), specialist clusters of economic activity, town centres and high streets and industrial land. This reflects the differing needs of different sectors and clusters across the capital.

The consultation document is seeking views on approaches to specialist clusters of economic activity, including how the next plan could identify all clusters of economic activity beyond the CAZ, recognising that some are not well-suited to a town centre or industrial designation.

We consider the London Plan should align with the approach to innovation identified in the London Growth Plan, which identifies:

• Innovation Districts
• Specialist clusters in life science, green innovation and specialist sites
• Innovation Corridors
• Industrial innovation sites 

It is right to identify specialist clusters of economic activity. The Knowledge Quarter is the best example of a cluster-based policy. This has helped to create a long-term strategic framework for the area around King’s Cross, which spreads across two local planning authorities and the border of the CAZ, and which has nurtured what has become one of the most established science and technology clusters in London.  

As government announces an £86bn investment in science and tech, the challenge is to create a new London Plan that can truly capitalise on London’s potential, when the needs of ‘specialist clusters’ are diverse. The classifications provided in the Growth Plan provide a basis for this. 

Setting the framework

It seems fundamental that the new London Plan should provide strategic planning support for the specialist clusters identified in the growth plan. The geography of clusters will vary, but it should be clear that Local Plan policies align with such a strategic policy and do not frustrate schemes from coming forward.  

Also fundamental to the new London Plan is recognising that successful clusters go beyond concentrations of a single use class. Clusters require a mix of other uses in close proximity to create vibrant and dynamic areas which foster innovation, encourage collaboration and attract world-leading talent and entrepreneurs. The new London Plan should ensure policy supporting specialist clusters of economic activity does not overlook the importance of integrating supporting uses alongside employment floorspace.

The London Plan could go further than this and would require local planning authorities to:

• engage with the anchor institutions that form the nucleus of each specialist cluster to understand their needs
• use the full range of planning tools available, such as Local Development Orders (LDO), to provide flexibility in land uses and/or adaptation of buildings to meet specialist needs without the requirement to prepare and submit a planning application
• adopt a strategic approach to inclusive employment and affordable workspace policy, rather than requiring each application to develop its own solution. Initiatives such as the LIFT (Leading Inclusive Futures Through Technology) programme, which is a partnership originally between Camden, Hackney, and Islington councils – and now also includes Tower Hamlets – has created opportunities for local people in the tech, digital, creative, and science sectors, while also supporting local businesses in these areas

We hope the new London Plan will be more ambitious about future employment and the identification of the specialist clusters. This is essential to maintaining London’s global standing, and to turbocharging productivity.

Further information

Contact Emma Andrews and Ben Tattersall