The Best London Coffee Shops With Wifi For Getting Work Done

Are you triggered by any or all of these words? Pyjamas. Blank email. Homes Under The Hammer. Twitter. Peanut butter. Spoon. Twitter. Blank document. Twitter. 4pm. If yes, then congratulations, you know what it’s like working from home.

There’s a reason why coffee shops exist: it’s to keep you from doing the above. But not all coffee shops are made for working in. Aside from good coffee you need somewhere comfy, with good wifi, and plenty of those sacred plug points. These are the best coffee shops in London with everything you need to get work done.

THE SPOTS

Central

“Redemption Roasters closes at 6pm” are words that will give any freelancer goosebumps. Better yet, this coffee house is open on Mondays too. There are a few outposts dotted around London but the Covent Garden spot is our favourite thanks to the winning combination of foliage and fast wifi. The ‘pour-over bar’ will get any coffee fanatics all excited and the pastries in particular are great.

There are a few things you need to know about FWD:Coffee, besides the fact that it’s a spacious coffee shop in Clerkenwell that’s bathed in light. Firstly, it has an excellent range of cold drinks and coffees, from a special espresso roast from Climpson’s to a banana frappé which is 100% worth your while. The second is that it’s open until 5pm during the week, which is pretty much a USP in a city where most coffee shops close at four.

Prufrock on Leather Lane has been one of the best coffee shops in London for a long time—both for the quality of its coffee and the environment you’ll drink it in. It’s laid-back enough for you to relax and go deep and finish that PowerPoint, and the service is also great.

North

This one goes out to anyone who regularly gets turfed out of closing coffee shops at 3pm, and then has to make the long, cold walk to the nearest Caffè Nero. Introducing Frequency, a casual day-to-night coffee shop on Angel’s cobblestoned Camden Passage, that’s open from 8am-6pm throughout the week, with the bonus bumper closing time of 9pm on Saturday. It’s set across three floors so there’s plenty of seating to snag, a bookable light and bright meeting room, and cocktails in the evening.

Trampoline is one of those cafes where you can simultaneously convince yourself that you’re cool enough to write a memoir and also not care that you’ve got the crumbs of one of London’s best pain au chocolats down your top. A social enterprise cafe on Angel’s Camden Passage, it helps refugees find work while also serving hefty pastries and daily sandwiches packed with fresh ingredients. Know that there’s extra seating upstairs, and it's closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

For lunch and by night, this spacious and bright Hornsey Road spin-off from Newington Green’s Jolene is all about pizza and wine, but it’s really an all-day bakery. So throughout the morning and afternoon you can eat pastries fresh from the ovens out back. You can also drink excellent coffee, and while we absolutely would not pitch up here with our laptop riser, trackpad, and external keyboard, it’s perfectly comfortable for those times when you need to do some non- or low-intensity screen work.

If you’re after a place to work with coffee, tea, snacks, and varying distractions, then you’ll enjoy Spiritland in King’s Cross. This music cafe and bar is comfortable and cosy, and just the right amount of cool. You can easily come here with colleagues, or bed in on your own. Which makes it particularly useful considering where it is.

Caravan King’s Cross is a huge all-day restaurant on Granary Square that takes the needs of freelance coffee drinkers very seriously. Not only is it open until 10:30pm throughout the week, but there are a couple of rows of workshop-style sharing tables at the back where you can get on with whatever you’re doing without having to worry about giving up your table for an incoming party of four trying to get some lunch.

South

At Change Please, the coffee is good, there are blue velvet seats to sink into, and a pink wall with geometric shapes that makes for a great Zoom background. It might be small but it’s never too busy or loud, and we’ve never had trouble getting a seat. You're close to Elephant and Castle tube station, and more importantly, great lunch options—Murger Han, Original Spice Kitchen, and Beza. Plus, this is a social enterprise which means even as you do battle with a spreadsheet you can feel good about the profits going to people experiencing homelessness.

A stumble away from Clapham Common tube station, Common is a cosy, all-day cafe. It’s ideal for tapping away on your laptop for a few hours during the week (hot tip: the plug points are towards the back and the front corner, so get here early to grab those coveted spots) or for a quick post-work cocktail (it’s open until 7pm during the week). Plus, if you’re enamoured with (read: distracted by) the trinkets on display, you can likely buy it from the in-house boutique.

Chapter 72 is a charming and cheerful coffee spot on one of London’s most picturesque stretches of pavement, Bermondsey Street. The prices are freelancer-friendly, the wifi is pretty quick, and if you don’t round off your day with the affogato, you’re doing it wrong. It’s a relatively small space so be prepared to beg, borrow, and steal a table at peak hours, but it’s worth it for the “good to see you again” atmosphere and 11pm closing time throughout the week.

New Malden High Street has several cafes but The Place is, well, the place to be. It feels like a proper local spot where everyone knows everyone, and servers brewing Monmouth coffee or whipping up bubble tea make the effort to stop to chat. It’s also the kind of place you can work from all day—with a morning flat white, lunchtime toastie, and doorstep slab of Korean honey bread come afternoon. There are plugs dotted around, and you won’t find any loud music blasting so you can take an emergency Zoom meeting if needs be.

Sadly, this isn’t a cafe with a staff of lumberjacks who pass around pens crafted from disused oak and yell “timber” everytime you check your phone. But what this Camberwell spot lacks in plaid-clad men, it makes up for in excellent coffee, light bites, and local artists’ work for sale on the walls. You can pretty much always find a spot downstairs. Know it can get noisy so it’s more suited for light laptop work rather than a full schedule of calls. It’s open bright and early at 7:30am on weekdays with things like shakshuka and banana bread on offer.

If you like your coffee shop with a side of great food, then Juliet's is the Tooting spot for you. It may only be open until 3pm in the week (so it’s probably a choice for the early birds), but this walk-in-only cafe is as likely to serve you a smoked pumpkin omelette with a massive whack of lemon salmoriglio as it is a latte and a couple of hours of uninterrupted peace while you finally get that presentation done. A ratio we entirely approve of.

Open from 8am to 4pm during the week, NOLA in Peckham does everything a neighbourhood coffee shop should do. It serves an excellent array of coffees, including a delightfully balanced batch brew. There’s a variety of seating options, including a couple of high-top window seats (always our first choice), an outdoor bench, and a bunch of two-seaters. It’s got some solid all-day brunch options and it’s buzzy, friendly, and bright—which is probably why you’ll see as many MacBooks as there are tables if you come in here mid-morning or afternoon.

The first thing you should know about Stir in Brixton is that it serves decent coffee. The second is that it is so dog-friendly we're coining a new category to describe it: dog-ecstatic. But you will have to cut your petting session short at 3pm when they close. As well as lots of exposed brick, there’s plenty of craft beer options, pastries, and enough seating that you can usually find a corner (and yes, a plug) to claim.

If we’re talking incentives to get work done, a cold craft beer must be up there. Bean & Hop in Earlsfield is a cafe by day that does excellent sausage rolls and good coffee, and has an extensive craft beer list at night. The internet’s reliably fast and there are plenty of power outlets, and the cafe has the sort of laid-back indie feel that’s always welcome in this part of town.

East

Lola Mora is a bright, breezy, and foliage-filled loft space that has decent coffee, salads, and sandwiches. But most of all it’s a chilled-out London Fields spot for laptop work during the week, and the music is quiet enough for any surprise Zoom calls. Sink into one of the comfy sofas (also where the plug points are) or gather a WFH crew around the benches. Plus there’s a huge covered terrace for when the mercury hits double figures. 

Trust Google Maps when it leads you from Blackhorse Road station to an industrial-looking yard. You’re in the right place for Blackhorse Workshop Cafe. It serves Wood St Coffee direct from the roastery, has wifi, loads of plug sockets, and dogs aren't just welcomed, they’re practically encouraged. Come at breakfast for excellent french toast thicker than Anna Karenina and bacon-stuffed bagels.

If one more person refers to you as funemployed you’re going to force them to submit your tax returns next year and see who’s having fun then. But, on the plus side, being freelance means you can make small plates and coffee spot, Attendant Coffee Roasters in Shoreditch, your work zone for the day. Expect lots of foliage, cold brew coffee, whitewashed walls, and of course, wifi. They’re open from 8am until 5pm.

One of the best places to work in Hackney isn’t a coffee shop. Instead, it’s Martello Hall, a pizzeria-slash-bar on Mare Street. During the day, there’s a comfortable first-floor lounge where you can get bottomless coffee and fast wifi for a tenner, and the ground area is ideal for a casual meeting or lunch.

The area around the Old Street roundabout is rammed with coffee shops, ranging from your Prets to the sort of places that take 20 minutes to make your drink. Walk a few minutes up City Road to Coffee Junction which, owing to being slightly out of the way, is quiet and spacious, and perfect for settling in and going deep on that spreadsheet you’ve been working on. The mugs of coffee are big if you’re on a freelancer budget, and there’s also a nice outdoor area for meetings when the weather’s nice.

You’d imagine Broadway Market would be one of the easiest places to find a coffee shop to work from. Oddly though, it isn’t. That’s why Market Cafe always feels like such a find. It’s got a solid brunch and lunch menu, so probably best to avoid peak hours. However, outside of that, this spot is spacious and friendly, with a laid-back atmosphere, a good spread of plug sockets, reasonably good wifi, and—if you pick the right spot—excellent views of the canal. What more could you ask for?

West

When you need calm vibes, an aesthetically pleasing coffee counter to stare at, and perhaps the odd golden labrador to stroke, Kanenas has got you. This family-run cafe is our emotional support coffee shop. It’s tucked down one of Ealing’s leafy side streets and serves great coffee and pastries. There aren’t many tables, but it’s quieter during the week and makes for a serene office for a few hours if you’re in the area.

Chestnut Bakery is the kind of place we really wouldn’t mind moving into permanently. In fact, we would happily spend eight hours working our way through the menu of clay oven-baked flatbreads while typing away in the spacious Victoria dining room, preferably on a window table or on the charming terrace. You’ll have to be strategic about the plug situation, but if you get one, you’ll want to spend your whole day here.

Greenspeares is a 10-minute walk from Knightsbridge station, and it’s a godsend. This cosy deli is a genuinely comfortable and lovely space to get some work done. The wifi is fast, there’s an upstairs and downstairs area, and plenty of healthy and tasty-sounding menu options.

Although the term “getting some work done” has a very different meaning in Chelsea, Beaufort House is still an excellent place to settle in with your laptop. This being SW3, it’s more of a Sloaney bar than an indie coffee shop, but it’s relatively quiet during the day, it’s very comfy, and the drinks are good.

Natoora is a little deli and cafe off Portobello Road that’s perfect to stop into for an hour or two. Although selling fresh produce is the main thing going on here, this store offers a daily changing menu of brunch-type dishes (see: vegetable-forward bowls and things on toast) depending on what produce has been delivered. There isn’t a tonne of seating, but grab a stool by the window and it makes for an ideal spot to power through some emails.

Someone actually managed to write a novel at this cafe in Shepherd’s Bush. That’s got to be at least a third as hard as setting up a website for your new personalised litter tray business. Not only does this place serve the kind of pancake-packed breakfasts that’ll actually get you out of your home office (your bed), but it’s also got the kind of jolly, rustic Riviera feel that’ll keep you chilled. Be warned, there can be a rush at lunchtime and when the local schools let out, but generally you can always find a table.

It’s hard to get work done in Notting Hill when you’re fighting for precious cafe real estate with a bunch of locals who are on their fourth glass of wine. Although most cafes along Portobello aren’t ideal for productivity, Bluebelles is an exception. Here, it’s always easy to find somewhere to work and unlike hanging around in Daylesford, staff are super accommodating to freelancers. As well as nice coffee, the cakes here are especially good.

This isn’t just a coffee shop, but a coffee school too—so you know the brews are good. Artisan Coffee School is a big, open-plan cafe in Ealing, a short walk from the station. There are lots of tables for two scattered about and a big communal table in the centre for group working. Add to that the generous amount of plug sockets and 7:30am opening time, and you’ve got a solid work spot in west London. The food is pretty good but we’d recommend heading to nearby Park’s Kitchen for bibimbap and a screen break overlooking the park instead.