London comes top in study of the world's most expensive cities to live in

Factors including rent and travel take their toll on the pockets of Londoners

London has come top in a study of the world's most expensive cities to live in. (Getty Images)

London is the most expensive city in the world to live in, beating New York, Paris and Sydney, according to a new study.

The biggest drains on the wallets of Londoners are rent and travel. On average, a litre of petrol costs £1.40, compared to 62p in Los Angeles.

While London residents pay on average £2,500 a month for rent, their counterparts in Wellington, New Zealand, pay less than half of that, with a £950 average in the city.

The figures come following findings in a separate study by the IPPR North think-tank which shows that one million homes across the UK in the private rented sector do not meet basic standards of safety, warmth and repair.

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Leisure in London is also extremely expensive, as cinemagoers are faced with a £22 bill for two people, compared with £14 in Sydney and £10 in Singapore.

A coffee costs 60 per cent more in London than in Rome, where residents can get their caffeine hit for little over £1.

While London came second to Tokyo as the city with the most expensive tech gadgets, the cheapest was New York, where a 16 GB iPod Nano costs £92, compared with £130 in London.

The information comes from Expatistan.com, a website that compares the cost of living in different parts of the world. Researchers analysed information from almost 200,000 users around the world to calculate the average prices in 1,600 cities.

The next most expensive city is Oslo in Norway, with Geneva coming third. The least expensive city included in the research is Caracas, Venezuela, just beating Kolkata, India.