Photo: Stefan Czapski · CC BY-SA 2.0Tower Hamlets has higher household incomes than 92% of UK towns
Tower Hamlets grades B− for jobs and income against UK towns, #26 of 33 in London. 7.2% of working-age residents claim jobless benefits; the typical UK town’s rate is 2.7%. The working day brings 69,679 people in, so the borough fills up.
The short version on work in Tower Hamlets
A local job centre
354,224 jobs are based in Tower Hamlets for 155,825 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Banking and finance, legal and accounting and software and it services make up 32% of them. Jobs based here ↓
Short journeys to work
Against 45% across England’s towns. 18% of commuters walk to work (11% across England’s towns). Getting to work ↓
More benefit claims than most towns
The typical UK town: 2.7%; England and Wales: 4% so far in 2026. Benefits over time ↓
Written from the data on this page: ONS Census 2021 and BRES, DWP claimant counts via Nomis, and ONS household income.
Tower Hamlets grades B− for jobs and income
Its four measures together rank it better than 54% of UK towns: #26 of 33 in London.
Its strongest measure is getting to jobs without a car; its weakest, the claimant rate.
How the grade works
Each input is ranked against every UK town of 1,000 or more (higher income and job access are better; fewer claimants and less employment deprivation are better), the four ranks are averaged, and the average is ranked again. A town needs three of the four.
354,224 jobs, one in five in finance and insurance
2.3 for every working resident; the typical UK town has 0.7.
BRES counts jobs, not people (a part-time job and a second job count once each), so it runs above the Census count of people working here (183,599). Small areas are shared out to the town by where their Census 2021 workers were based; kinds of work are BRES industry divisions (SIC 2007), rounded. England’s towns: all jobs in its built-up areas.
Jobs at workplaces in Tower Hamlets (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).
48% of commuters in Tower Hamlets go on foot, by bike or by public transport
Median journey 4.5 km; typical UK town 8.4 km.
55% of journeys to work are under 5 km (3 miles), against 45% across England’s towns, and 4% are 30 km or more. Tower Hamlets grades A+ for walkability: the share of commuters who walk, cycle or take public transport, against UK towns.
ONS Census 2021, TS061 (method of travel) and TS058 (distance, straight line from home to workplace), output areas summed. Census day fell in the third lockdown, so fewer people travelled than usual.
How residents who travel to work get there, and how far they go (Census 2021, not counting those working mainly at home).
Jobless claims in the Tower Hamlets council area have run above England and Wales every month since 2015
Tower Hamlets’ rate was about 3.3% in 2019, peaked at 9.3% in March 2021 and has averaged 6.6% in 2026, against 4% across England and Wales. Claims everywhere stay higher than before the pandemic, partly because Universal Credit counts more people on low pay as looking for work.
The chart is the whole council area of Tower Hamlets, which Nomis publishes monthly; the figures above the line are for Tower Hamlets’ built-up area. Claimant count: people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, or Universal Credit while required to look for work. Employment deprivation counts people out of work on Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, Incapacity Benefit, Severe Disablement Allowance, Carer’s Allowance or the Universal Credit equivalents (English Indices of Deprivation 2025). The “most deprived tenth” compares areas within England only.
Claimant rate since 2015: people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance or Universal Credit while looking for work, as a share of residents aged 16 to 64 (DWP, via Nomis).
Workers pour into Tower Hamlets: 18% more on a working day
155,825 residents were in work at the 2021 Census; 183,599 people worked in Tower Hamlets.
For every resident who leaves Tower Hamlets for work, about 2 people come in. 33% of residents who travel to a workplace stay in the borough; in the typical UK town of 2,500+ it’s 14%.
The middle of each bar is the same people: residents who work in the borough or from home.
Tower Hamlets’ workers come from Newham to Havering
- Newham8,555
- Redbridge4,614
- Hackney4,456
- Barking and Dagenham3,706
- Waltham Forest3,600
- Greenwich3,068
- Southwark2,937
- Havering2,555
- Lewisham2,380
- Islington1,724
- Westminster6,128
- City of London5,148
- Hackney3,855
- Newham3,711
- Camden3,256
- Southwark2,455
- Islington2,450
- Lambeth1,369
- Kensington and Chelsea1,346
- Waltham Forest1,058
Newham, 3 miles away, sends 8,555 people, more than any other town; in all, 38% of the people who work in Tower Hamlets live outside it. Going the other way, Westminster is the biggest single destination (6,128).
The ten places that send the most workers into Tower Hamlets, and the ten where its residents most often work (Census 2021, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
Households in Tower Hamlets average £72,225 a year
Higher than 91% of UK towns of 2,500+; the typical town is £52,385. The whole council area of Tower Hamlets averages £72,215.
The town figure is ONS’s neighbourhood (MSOA) estimates shared out by where the town’s residents live.
Total household income before tax, mean, year to March 2023 (ONS small-area estimates).
In Tower Hamlets, household incomes run from £55K to £102K from one neighbourhood to the next
Mean household income before tax in each of the 34 neighbourhoods (MSOAs) mostly inside the borough: the highest is 1.8 times the lowest.
Each dot is a neighbourhood (MSOA, about 8,000 people) mostly inside Tower Hamlets; names from the House of Commons Library. ONS gives each a 95% range of roughly ±£7K to ±£10K, so neighbourhoods close together on the strip may not really differ.
Jobs, studies and retirement in Tower Hamlets: 61% in work
ONS Census 2021, tables TS066 (economic activity) and TS063 (occupation), output areas summed to the built-up area. England’s towns: everyone living in its built-up areas.
Everyone 16 and over, by what they were doing the week before the 2021 Census, and the jobs of those in work.
For jobs and income, Tower Hamlets is 16th of 39 UK towns of 218,000 to 420,000
| # | Town | People | Jobs per worker | Work in own town | Claimants | Income | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bromley London | 325,469 | 0.7 | 40% | 3.5% | £87K | A− |
| 2 | Wandsworth London | 326,725 | 0.7 | 26% | 4.1% | £85K | A− |
| 3 | Bexley London | 246,074 | 0.6 | 33% | 3.5% | £76K | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 14 | Croydon London | 389,242 | 0.7 | 37% | 6.5% | £74K | B |
| 15 | Waltham Forest London | 278,129 | 0.6 | 26% | 6.5% | £71K | B− |
| 16 | Tower Hamlets London | 311,072 | 2.3 | 33% | 7.2% | £72K | B− |
| 17 | Lewisham London | 300,764 | 0.4 | 25% | 6.8% | £72K | B− |
| 18 | Haringey London | 264,069 | 0.6 | 20% | 7.3% | £71K | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 39 | Stoke-on-Trent Staffordshire | 260,560 | 1.1 | 64% | 5.5% | £41K | D |
Jobs & income letters rank against every UK town of 1,000 or more; the order here is context only.
Ordered by Jobs & income Grade: the top three, the towns either side of Tower Hamlets, and others in London.
Tower Hamlets and its neighbours: work and income
| Town | People | Jobs | Work in own town | Claimants | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tower Hamlets | 311,072 | 354,224 | 33% | 7.2% | B− |
| City of London | 7,820 | 670,951 | 30% | 2.2% | A+ |
| Hackney | 258,464 | 173,796 | 29% | 7.1% | B− |
| Southwark | 307,076 | 296,540 | 25% | 5.7% | B |
| Newham | 351,065 | 138,670 | 28% | 8% | B− |
| Islington | 216,309 | 270,267 | 23% | 5.6% | B− |
| Lewisham | 300,764 | 69,881 | 25% | 6.8% | B− |
| Greenwich | 288,117 | 93,346 | 30% | 5.9% | B |
Jobs based in each place, commuters who stay in their own town, and the claimant rate.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- The Census was taken in lockdown. Census day was 21 March 2021, during the third national lockdown: many people were furloughed or working from home, so fewer travelled to work, and journeys were shorter, than before the pandemic or since. The flows on this page show where people worked that spring.
- At home and no fixed place are one figure. In the workplace flows, ONS puts people who mainly worked at home and people with no fixed workplace (drivers, builders, care workers on rounds) at their home address, so the two can’t be told apart there.
- Towns are built-up areas. Tower Hamlets here is ONS’s built-up area: the town as built, not its council district. A workplace on an estate or farm outside every built-up area counts as “outside any built-up area”.
- Jobs are counted where they are. BRES counts jobs at each workplace (employees and working owners, rounded by ONS), so a town with a hospital, university or big employer can have more jobs than working residents. Small areas are shared out to towns by where their Census workers were based.
- The benefits chart is the council area. Nomis publishes the claimant count monthly for councils back to 2013, so the line is Tower Hamlets as a whole; the claimant rate elsewhere on this page is Tower Hamlets’ built-up area, from small areas.
Questions about work in Tower Hamlets
Where do people in Tower Hamlets work?
At the 2021 Census, 33% of Tower Hamlets’ residents who travelled to work worked in the borough itself; the most common other places were Westminster (6,128), City of London (5,148) and Hackney (3,855). 60% of working residents worked mainly at home or had no fixed workplace; the Census was taken in lockdown, so home working was unusually high.
How many people commute into Tower Hamlets?
69,679 people who lived elsewhere worked in Tower Hamlets at the 2021 Census, 38% of its 183,599 workers. The most came from Newham (8,555), Redbridge (4,614) and Hackney (4,456). 41,455 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Tower Hamlets?
About 354,200 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Tower Hamlets in 2024, on ONS’s Business Register and Employment Survey: 2.3 for every resident in work, against 0.7 in the typical UK town. The biggest kinds of work are banking and finance (about 59,250), legal and accounting (about 31,100) and software and it services (about 25,500).
Is Tower Hamlets a good place to find work?
Tower Hamlets earns a B− for jobs and income, better than 54% of UK towns on household income, the claimant rate, employment deprivation and access to jobs together. Mean household income £72,225; 7.2% of 16 to 64s claim unemployment benefits.
How do people in Tower Hamlets get to work?
20% of commuters go by car or van, 18% walk, 9% cycle and 21% take the bus or train; 55% travel under 5 km. Census 2021, taken during lockdown.
What is the average household income in Tower Hamlets?
Mean household income before tax was £72,225 in the year to March 2023 (ONS), against £52,385 in the typical UK town. By neighbourhood it runs from £55,447 in Shadwell North to £101,993 in Leamouth.
Sources: ONS Census 2021 origin-destination data, place of work (ODWP01EW), output areas summed to the ONS 2022 built-up area · ONS Census 2021 tables TS058 (distance), TS061 (method of travel), TS063 (occupation) and TS066 (economic activity) · ONS Business Register and Employment Survey via Nomis (open access), by industry division · ONS small-area income estimates (financial year ending 2023); House of Commons Library MSOA names · DWP claimant count via Nomis (towns January to August 2026; councils, regions and England and Wales monthly since January 2015) · MHCLG English Indices of Deprivation 2025 · DfT Transport Connectivity Metric (employment) · TownRatings grades: our own summary of the data, ranked against UK towns only. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.