*Edit – updated April 2025* Since publishing this article in 2019 (yes, pre-Covid), sooooo many of the places I featured, particularly the coworking spaces with childcare for babies and young children, have permanently closed. So, I’ve updated the list and it’s shrunk from 15 to 5. I’d love to bulk this up again with new places, so please do send any recommendations my way!

Looking for coworking offices, cafés and all-purpose spaces in London where you can bring the laptop, get a decent coffee and get some work done with the children in tow during the school holidays?

Me too!

I freelance from home, so I’ve been on the hunt for places to take the kids and squeeze in a bit of work time while visiting London this Easter. I picked out three of the best child-friendly coworking spaces for an article in Time Out London, and once I started looking, I found so many great places that it seemed a shame not to do anything with the rest of the research.

Some of these I’ve tried first-hand, some are courtesy of my good friend Google, and some are thanks to some very helpful fellow freelancers on three excellent Facebook groups (Freelance Heroes, Freelance Lifestylers and Doing It For The Kids: Community, if you’re interested – they’re all amazing).

These cover soft play centres with cafés for school-age kids, workshops where you can leave the kids and work in an adjoining café for a few hours, plus London museums, bookshops and cafes with Wi-Fi where you could work alongside a teenager revising for exams.

5 Places In London Where Freelancers Can Work With Kids and Teens In Tow

1. If you just need to be able to reply to emails but don’t need to sit and do solid, uninterrupted work, a soft play centre could work for school-age kids. This post is amazing: https://www.thelondonmother.net/home/londons-best-indoor-playgrounds if you’re looking for London’s most epic soft play centres and indoor playgrounds. My favourite is The Sherriff Centre in a vaulted church. It’s divvied up into 1-hour slots so you can whizz through some emails and watch them from a ringside seat in the café. https://thesherriffcentre.co.uk/things-to-do/hullabaloo-softplay/

2. Child aged 3-10? If you just need an hour, drop them off at the Smaland play area at IKEA while you work in the café. IKEA Småland co-workers will take care of your children for free for 60 minutes while you shop… and work. If you’re quick, you can walk out with an hour’s work done, happy kids and a BILLY bookcase…
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/customer-service/shopping-at-ikea/smaland/

3. There are some gorgeous looking child-friendly London cafés, including Yummy Yummy In My Tummy in Stoke Newington: https://www.instagram.com/yummyyummy.stokey/ 

4. The Royal Institution do some fab science-related holiday sessions for children, so you could book them onto a half-day one then work using the café’s Wi-Fi: https://www.rigb.org/whats-on

5. If you’ve got teens and want to work alongside them while they revise, there are some brilliant coworking cafés that will give you both a break from the kitchen table. I’ve picked out one – The Wren, in a gorgeous church near St Paul’s – because I’ve been and it really is beautiful. Take a look: http://www.thewrencoffee.com/

If you’re on the hunt for similar spaces, this post is fantastic: https://london.eater.com/maps/best-london-cafes-freelancers-work-wifi. I’ve earmarked Timber Yard and Coffee Works to visit next time I’m in the city and need somewhere to work.

And if you’re a parent with a baby, toddler or pre-schooler, this amazing guide from DIFTK is a must-read: http://www.doingitforthekids.net/#coworkingguide (and if you’re new to DIFTK, the podcast is brill: http://www.doingitforthekids.net/diftk-podcast/)

Happy multitasking!