Where to live in London as students
Use the London universities tube map to compare student-friendly areas like Camden, Kentish Town, Earl’s Court, Hammersmith and Mile End by real walking and tube time to campus.
Working out where to live as a London student is really a question of journey time. Rent, nightlife and vibe all matter, but if your commute is awkward you will feel it every single day.
A simple way to start is with the universities filter on our London Tube Map. Pick your university, set a realistic walking time, then add a short tube-time layer. The green stations show where you can reasonably walk from campus; the purple stations show areas that are a quick ride away on the same tube lines.
As you move the sliders, look for clusters of green and purple stations. Those clusters usually correspond to neighbourhoods that work well for students because they balance rent with a straightforward journey.
When you click on a promising purple station, the station card includes a “Zoopla flat search” button. This opens Zoopla in map view centred on that station, already filtered for smaller flats within a sensible budget and walking radius so you can jump straight from journey times to real listings.
For UCL, SOAS and other Bloomsbury universities, popular areas include Camden, Kentish Town, Tufnell Park and Finsbury Park, as well as parts of Islington and Holloway. These are all tied together by the Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria lines plus strong bus routes.
Imperial College students often look at Earl’s Court, West Kensington, Fulham and Hammersmith. Staying on or near the District, Piccadilly or Circle lines keeps the daily trip to South Kensington simple even if you move a zone or two out to save on rent.
For LSE and King’s College London in central London, students spread out along the Northern, Jubilee, Bakerloo, Central and District lines — think Waterloo, London Bridge, Elephant & Castle, Bermondsey, Clerkenwell and Mile End. The map helps you see which of these areas gives you a direct route with minimal changes.
Once you have a shortlist from the map, cross-check it against your budget, the kind of flatshare or halls you want, and how late you will typically travel. Night Tube routes and last-train times can be just as important as the morning commute when you are balancing study, work and a social life.
There is no single “best” student area in London, but by combining the university tube map with your own needs, you can quickly narrow the city down to a handful of neighbourhoods that make everyday life manageable and enjoyable.