London, Ontario is growing, changing, and at a crossroads. The economy is producing more jobs, more businesses, and more income than a decade ago. At the same time, 1 in 3 residents experienced food insecurity in 2024. Both of those things are true at once. This page explains why, using real data in plain language.
The London Economic Scorecard tracks two things: how healthy the business environment is, and whether residents are actually better off. Both are scored from 0 to 100, with 50 as the baseline: the 2015–2019 average, set before COVID and before the inflation surge, when the economy was stable. A score above 50 means things have improved; below 50 means they’ve gotten worse. This is not a promotional score. It’s designed to be honest, reproducible, and impossible to spin.
Tracks firm survival, how many businesses are scaling past 20 employees, private-sector job growth, wage levels, and prime-age workforce participation.
Tracks real income, housing affordability, food security, employment participation, and employer density. Food insecurity is the most alarming signal in this index.
Sourcing note: these are the formula-driven scores from our Aug 2026 Scorecard refresh — computed by running the same underlying baseline/latest data through the documented scoring formula, rather than the rounded manual estimates the previous version of this page used.
London is a mid-sized Canadian city with a younger-skewing, increasingly diverse population that has grown faster than the provincial average in recent years, driven largely by immigration and relocation from more expensive cities.
| Age group | Share |
|---|---|
| Children (0–14) | 16.3% |
| Youth (15–24) | 13.0% |
| Young adults (25–34) | 15.3% |
| Adults (35–44) | 13.0% |
| Adults (45–54) | 11.7% |
| Adults (55–64) | 12.9% |
| Seniors (65+) | 17.8% |
London’s largest group are Millennials, now in their prime working years, with aging Baby Boomers close behind, retiring out of the workforce. This generational handoff shapes everything from housing demand to job vacancies.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Population growth, 2016–2021 | +10% |
| Residents who are immigrants | 24.8% |
| Visible minority residents, 2021 | 29% |
| Non-permanent residents (students, etc.) | 4.6% |
| Average household size (Ontario: 2.6) | 2.3 |
| One-person households | 32% |
Immigration is structural, not optional. Without newcomers, provincial projections show near-zero population growth and a shrinking workforce in London by 2031. Immigrants accounted for a 24% increase in the local workforce from 2011 to 2021 — well above the provincial average. Integration (credential recognition, language supports, removing employment barriers) is an economic strategy, not just a social one.
London’s economy has shifted from a manufacturing-heavy city to a regional service hub, with a large public anchor in healthcare and education, a growing tech sector, and a diverse small-business community.
| Industry | Share |
|---|---|
| Health Care and Social Assistance | 15.3% |
| Retail Trade | 12.0% |
| Manufacturing | 10.4% |
| Educational Services | 9.5% |
| Professional and Technical Services | 7.6% |
| Construction | 6.8% |
| Accommodation and Food Services | 6.4% |
| Finance and Insurance | 5.6% |
| All other industries | 26.4% |
The public sector stabilizes; the private sector grows. London’s public anchor (hospitals, Western University, Fanshawe College, school boards) provides steady employment through recessions. But long-term prosperity depends on the private sector growing firms large enough to pay competitive wages. That’s where the gap is.
London’s Local Business Health Index sits at 69.6 out of 100. Meaningfully above the 2015–2019 baseline, driven mainly by strong private-sector job growth and rising wages. The one component pulling the other way: the share of businesses scaling past 20 employees has actually fallen slightly, along with employer density — meaning businesses are forming, but not enough of them are scaling up to the size that creates great jobs.
London’s Citizen Prosperity Index sits at 61.1 out of 100. Above baseline, with rising incomes and more people working. Food insecurity is the one indicator moving sharply in the wrong direction, and it’s the alarm bell that can’t be ignored even as the headline score improves.
How to read these scores: 50 is the baseline — the 2015–2019 average for London. Above 50 means things have improved; below 50 means they’ve gotten worse. Real progress and real problems are both present at once.
| Indicator | What it measures | Baseline | Latest | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Firms with 20+ employees | Are businesses scaling to the size that creates good wages? | 15.7% | 15.3% | ↓ Worse |
| Employer density | Employers per 1,000 residents — is opportunity keeping pace with population? | 28.6 | 27.9 | ↓ Worse |
| Net business openings | Are more businesses opening than closing? | 341 | 344 | ↑ Better |
| Private-sector employment | Total private-sector jobs — the engine of wages and growth | 172,800 | 215,200 | ↑ Better |
| Median real income | What the typical employed Londoner earns, after inflation | $68,000 | $76,500 | ↑ Better |
| Prime-age participation | Share of 25–54 year-olds working or looking for work | 82.2% | 86.9% | ↑ Better |
| Housing cost burden | Households spending more than 30% of income on shelter | 25.6% | 22.3% | ↑ Better (lagged) |
| Food insecurity | Households that can't reliably afford enough food | 17.2% | 31.3% | ↓ Much worse |
This is the central tension in London right now: the numbers show a city that is genuinely growing, and they also show a city where that growth isn’t reaching everyone. Understanding both sides is the only honest starting point.
London’s economy is expanding, and the numbers prove it. What they also prove is that rising incomes and rising food insecurity can exist in the same city at the same time. Affordability has outpaced what growth alone can fix. Prosperity here is real. It’s just not reaching everyone yet.— Susan Goebel, London Economic Scorecard, 2025
The data points to a clear diagnosis: London is good at starting businesses and bad at scaling them. It’s good at creating jobs and inconsistent at making those jobs pay enough to cover the cost of living. These are solvable problems.
The central challenge: London has 12,597 employer firms. Only 15.3% have 20 or more employees. That scaling gap is where wages stagnate, productivity plateaus, and prosperity stops compounding. Every priority below is aimed at closing it.
The support ecosystem is stacked toward new business formation. The urgent gap is in the 5-to-50-employee range, where firms need mentorship, access to capital, and help crossing into the stage where they create durable, well-paying jobs. A dedicated Scale-Up Navigator program would change this.
London has good organizations — LEDC, TechAlliance, the Small Business Centre, the Chamber, CFIB. The problem is coordination. A business owner shouldn’t need to know which door to knock on. A single Business Concierge model with a shared CRM would connect the dots.
London’s shops, restaurants, and local services are the city’s economic backbone and cultural identity — many are one e-commerce wave away from closing. Micro-grants for digital transformation, storefront revival programs, and coordinated buy-local campaigns would keep commercial corridors alive and competitive.
Western and Fanshawe produce thousands of graduates a year; many leave for Toronto. Work-integrated learning placements, a talent-attraction campaign targeting remote workers priced out of larger cities, and stronger campus-to-employer connections would begin to reverse that flow.
London’s Baby Boomers are retiring, and many own businesses with no succession plan. Without intervention, those businesses close, jobs disappear, and community wealth is lost. A structured succession-matching program, connecting retiring owners with next-generation entrepreneurs, would preserve decades of economic foundation.
London currently lacks a consistent, honest public dashboard of its own economic health. The London Economic Scorecard is a start. Annual updates, ward-level data, and public accountability against these metrics would give residents, businesses, and city leadership a shared language for progress — and make it much harder to paper over real problems with good-news press releases.