South Kensington
Neighbourhood · 10,449 residents
57Good
Good · better than 4 in 10 suburbs
Check Local Score out of 100 · 60 is typical for the country
Each arc is a topic, coloured by its score
What’s good
- 100 places to eat and drink
- 16 GP practices within a short walk
- 100% of schools are rated Good or better by Ofsted
Check before you view
- Prices are high for local incomes: affordability scores 10, where 60 is typical
The essentials
Everyday life
The area
Around South Kensington
Map outline: Approximate — no official boundary exists for this neighbourhood
Is South Kensington a good place to live?
South Kensington scores 57/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for food & drink (95) and health (75).
It scores lowest on affordability (10).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for South Kensington in London, each measured against the national average.
Summary of South Kensington
The streets around South Kensington are stucco-fronted and quiet in the way that money makes things quiet — private schools with railings, museum entrances a few minutes' walk apart, and a steady flow of pushchairs and delivery vans rather than pub crawls. It attracts people who work in the centre and want to feel insulated from it, plus a substantial international contingent; the presence of the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle on the list of local schools tells its own story about who's putting down roots here.
The practical picture is dominated by two tube stations, South Kensington and Gloucester Road, which between them make this one of the better-connected corners of the capital, reflected in a transport grade that sits comfortably above the national average. Housing, though, is almost entirely a flat market — leasehold flats make up the overwhelming majority of sales, freeholds are the exception rather than the rule, and a median house price north of £1.1 million puts this area well above even London norms, let alone the national one. Schools skew private and academically strong: alongside Outstanding-rated options nearby, the sample here leans toward independents like Wetherby School and Queen's Gate School, which suits families who've already decided fees aren't the obstacle.
Green space is tight rather than generous — the borough's parks are shared thinly across a dense population, and you'll feel that in the scale of local squares rather than sprawling commons. What the area does instead is compensate with its museums, restaurants and the general cultural draw of Exhibition Road, so a weekend here is built around walking to a gallery and finding a table afterwards rather than a long dog walk. The one grade that breaks the pattern is safety: everything else reads comfortably above average, but the safety grade dips to a C+, with anti-social behaviour and theft driving crime numbers that run noticeably higher than the wider borough's already elevated rate. It's not a dangerous postcode by national standards, but it's busier and more exposed to opportunistic crime than the calm streetscape suggests.