Socio Economic

 The majority of the South London population (62.2%) is in the ABC1 (higher and intermediate managerial/ administrative/ professional) category.

People from Asian and African countries are the largest ethnic groups after British nationals.

The Borough of Southwark has amongst the largest proportion of Black African residents in London, with the West African culture particularly evident in Peckham's high street shops and the Elephant and Castle shopping centre, and goods for the Caribbean community are prevalent in the Choumert Road market in Peckham and Deptford market in Lewisham. 

The majority of London's Chinese community lives in inner London, with around 20 per cent distributed amongst Southwark, Barnet and Westminster. Authentic shops and services have sprung up to cater for this community, including the supermarket Wing Tai in the Aylesham Centre and the London Chinese Cultural Centre which organises film screenings, dance performances and concerts across London.

The South-Asian community is prevalent in the boroughs of Merton, Wandsworth and Croydon.  Tooting, on the Wandsworth and Merton border, has a strong concentration of Tamil, Keralan and Sri Lankan communities offering a variety of ethnic supermarkets, restaurants, Baitul Futuh Mosque - one of London's larger mosques and a dedicated Saturday school.

The largest Korean community in Europe resides in Kingston and Merton; approximately 10,000 are believed to be living in Kingston alone.  There are numerous goods and services devoted to the community, ranging from Saturday schools and supermarkets, to travel agents, accountants and computer specialists etc -

Other less well known community clusters include the Portuguese in Lambeth with a lively café and restaurant culture and Americans in Richmond in terms of businesses, and students attending the American International University. There is also a Latin American community around Elephant & Castle and a Turkish community in Sydenham on the borders of Lewisham, Southwark and Croydon.
Within South London deprivation is consistent with the national average at 21.5 compared with a national average of 21.57. The boroughs of Richmond, Kingston and Sutton have a low index in terms of deprivation but there is room for improvement in Lambeth and Southwark which have significantly high levels of deprivation.

Over the period 1991-2008, South London's residence base has grown by approximately 10%, above the GB average of 6.7%.