Volunteering in London

London runs on volunteers. Across all 32 boroughs and the City, people give their time to food banks, community gardens, night shelters, museums, sports clubs and befriending schemes, often within walking distance of home.

Popular causes in London

• Food poverty, through the borough food banks and community kitchens that operate in almost every part of the city
• Homelessness and street outreach, where winter night shelters and day centres depend on rota volunteers
• Loneliness and befriending, particularly telephone and visiting schemes for older Londoners
• Environment and green space, from Thames foreshore clean ups to park friends groups and city farms
• Youth work and tutoring, where supplementary schools and homework clubs run on volunteer time

Browse every cause on the impact areas page, or start from a skill you want to build.

How to start volunteering in London

1. Browse the live roles on this page and open anything that looks like your kind of thing.
2. Apply in a couple of minutes. There is no CV stage and no interview for most roles.
3. Log your hours as you go, so your contribution becomes a record you can show.
4. Earn verified badges and certificates for your CV, your UCAS application, or your LinkedIn profile.

About volunteering in London

London’s voluntary sector is unusually dense and unusually local. Almost every borough has its own council for voluntary service and its own volunteer centre, which means the organisation looking for help is often a few streets away rather than a national charity with a call centre. That changes what volunteering feels like here. A shift at a Hackney food bank, a Saturday at a Lewisham city farm and an evening tutoring in Tower Hamlets are all recognisably London volunteering, and none of them looks much like the others.

The city’s scale also means the roles are specialised in ways smaller places cannot support. London has museums and galleries that recruit front of house volunteers, hospitals with dedicated volunteer services, festivals and marathons that need thousands of marshals for a single weekend, and legal and financial charities that want professional skills given a few hours at a time. If you want to build a specific skill rather than simply be useful, London is the easiest place in the country to find a role that does both.

What London volunteers most often say is that it makes a large city feel small. Regular shifts introduce you to the people who live around you, which is the thing the commute and the flat share tend not to do. If you have moved here recently, a weekly volunteering slot is the fastest route to knowing your neighbourhood properly.

Common questions about volunteering in London

Where can I volunteer in London without a long commute?

Most of the roles on this page are borough based, so filter by the area you live in rather than by central London. Food banks, community gardens, charity shops and befriending schemes exist in nearly every London postcode, and the ones near you will usually be looking for people.

Do I need experience to start volunteering?

Almost never. Most organisations are looking for reliability and interest rather than a background in the work, and they will show you what to do. If a role does need a specific skill or a DBS check, it says so on the listing.

How much time do I have to give?

As much or as little as suits you. Some roles are a single afternoon, some are a couple of hours a week, and some are one off events. You can filter by how much time you have before you apply.