London is now ranked eighth in the Mercer’s 2024 cost-of-living ranking, up one spot in the last 12 months, just one spot behind New York.  

Hong Kong is still the most expensive city in the world to live for expats and workers for global businesses, followed by Singapore in second spot. Switzerland occupies the next three slots with Zurich, Geneva and Basle, all in the top five with the three Swiss cities once again staying unchanged,

The Mercer ranking is used to calculate living costs for workers who primarily work overseas for businesses and multinationals.

The only other European city in the top 20 ranking was Copenhagen, followed by Paris at 29th and Berlin at 31st.