Shoreditch

Shoreditch sold its soul to the tech crowd around 2012 and has been quietly buying it back ever since. The textile warehouses that once housed sweatshops and print works are now split into loft apartments with the original steel columns left exposed, and the streets around Charlotte Road and Redchurch Street carry more independent coffee roasters per square metre than anywhere else in the city.

It is not quiet, and anyone telling you otherwise on a Friday night has not stood outside the Old Blue Last. Hoxton Square and the streets immediately north of it settle down after 11pm; the blocks closer to Great Eastern Street do not, and that is worth walking at night before you commit to a flat there.

It suits first-time buyers stretching for a one-bed with genuine character, and landlords chasing yield from a tenant pool that turns over fast but rarely sits empty. Families tend to move on once school catchments start to matter.