London among most expensive cities for expats

London is the 17th most expensive place for foreign workers to live in the world - but Belfast is one of the cheapest, research suggested yesterday.

Consultancy group Mercer ranked London as the 17th most expensive place for expatriates to live, while Aberdeen was the UK's second most expensive city coming in 149th place, followed by Glasgow at 155th and Birmingham at 158th.

Belfast was found to be one of the cheapest places for expats to live, ranked 182nd out of the 214 cities looked at.

Luanda in Angola was found to be the most expensive place in the world for foreigners to live, the first time an African city topped the list.

It was followed by Tokyo and N'djamena in Chad, with Moscow coming in fourth place and Geneva fifth.

Libreville in Gabon also made it into the top 10. Mercer said the presence of three African cities in its list reflected the growing economic importance of the region to global businesses. It added that the living costs in some African cities could be "extraordinarily high" because of the cost involved in finding good, secure accommodation.

Karachi in Pakistan was found to be the cheapest place to live for expats, followed by Managua in Nicaragua and Islamabad, also in Pakistan. The survey looked at 214 cities across the world and measured the cost of living in each place based on 200 items, including housing, transport, food, clothing and household goods.