Create meetup in Londonchevron_right
Select a place on the map to change the location.
I want to meet
Verified required?
want to meet at fmd_good The Spot
want to meet at fmd_good Local House
explore London Guides
bar_chart Trends in London
Looking for a tech-savvy female friend? Hit me up!
honestly the fintech scene in london is so insular but also kinda lonely if u dont have the right crew. have u checked out any of the book clubs that meet in soho? theres one called tech lit that meets at the betting shop on dean street first tuesdays. i know it sounds random but the crowd is exactly what ur describing, lots of women in their 30s who work in tech but also just wanna talk about something other than apis for once. they do cookbook swaps sometimes too which sounds like ur vibe
also ngl the surfing thing is tricky in london but theres a crew that goes down to the wave in bristol on weekends. they carpool from paddington and its mostly people who work in startups or remote tech jobs. i went once and it was way more social than i expected, everyone was just hanging out in the cafe afterwards talking about travel plans
You might want to look into the members clubs that have actual community managers, not just the standard ones. I'm thinking of places like The Allbright in Fitzrovia or even the London branch of The Wing if it's still running events. They do cooking nights and book clubs specifically for members, and the crowd leans heavily toward women in finance and tech who moved here for work and are trying to rebuild a social circle. It costs money but it's cheaper than a therapist and you get a proper kitchen to cook in.
There's also a group called The Adventurists that runs weekend trips from London, they do surfing weekends in Cornwall and hiking in the Peak District. It's not exclusively female but the demographic is mostly late 20s to 40s professionals who are sick of pub culture. They use a WhatsApp group to coordinate carpools from King's Cross. I've seen them post about sharing a house for a week in Portugal for surf trips.
What are some innovative ways to anonymously compare rental prices in a city?
SpareRoom's "rooms wanted" ads are underrated for this. people post what they're currently paying alongside what they want next, so you can scrape a rough sense of going rates by postcode without anyone knowing you looked. it skews young and flatshare heavy tho, so not much use if you're after 2-beds in zone 2.
Another one is just the depozit or tenancy deposit scheme data. not public-facing, but your council's housing officer can tell you median rents from deposit registrations if you email them under FOI. takes weeks, but its proper anon and nobody clocks u.
Rightmove and Zoopla only show asking rents, which are often 10 to 15 percent above what a place actually goes for, so they're a poor benchmark. The trick I've used is the ONS Price Index of Private Rents, which breaks things down to borough level and is genuinely anonymous since it's aggregate data, no listing or account needed. For something more granular, the London Renters Union runs a rent reporting tool where you submit what you're paying with your postcode and it maps it against others nearby, though the coverage is patchy outside the inner boroughs.
the openrent "rent check" thing is decent for zones 3-4 where the unions tool barely reaches. also worth checking the london.gov.uk planning portal for new build applications, they list "affordable" and market rent figures per unit in the viability assessments, which is basically the developer telling the council what they expect to charge. bit of a faff to dig through but its public, anonymous & nobody knows ur looking
load 1 more reply