Commercially, Westminster is fast becoming an important fringe of the West End, attracting new smaller creative businesses such as Lightspeed Research, Nesta and Digiterre. As the redevelopment continues and more office space is being built, we estimate that approximately 1.3m sq ft of office development will be delivered in Victoria between 2016 and 2018. This is likely to attract more people to both work and live in the area.

The Professional, Scientific and Tech sector is the largest employment industry for people living in Westminster and Pimlico accounting for 16.8% of the employees, according to the 2011 Census. The Financial and Insurance sector comes second at 15.9% respectively.

In the more traditional prime locations, such as Belgravia, the financial industry tends to be more dominant. However, over the next five years Oxford Economics forecasts that while the Financial and Insurance industry will experience minimal growth, employees in the Professional, Scientific and Tech industry will increase by 15.6% to become the largest employment industry in central London.

Westminster and Pimlico are well placed to draw on the newly created wealth that will result, as Tech buyers in particular look for alternative locations to live.

International residents are an important source of demand for the prime housing market in London, accounting for around 38% of buyers. In the prime markets of Westminster and Pimlico, currently 46% of people looking to buy through Savills are from overseas, coming from 23 different countries. This indicates that international wealth will play a further role in the evolution of the area’s housing market.

Investors

Investment buyers are particularly attracted to this part of London as there is a mature private rented sector. According to the 2011 Census, 25.1% of households in London are in the private rented sector and in Westminster and Pimlico the proportion is significantly higher at 34.4% and 35.0% of all households respectively.

Demand for prime rental properties in the area is driven by a strong employment market and an increasing number of international companies in London. Savills figures show that of the tenants renting prime properties in Westminster and Pimlico just 25% are British, with a similar proportion of tenants originating from Western Europe, accounting for 27%.