We apply Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation to a smart city context, focusing in particular on the ‘Smart London’ case. With this exploratory case study we contribute by setting out a replicable step-by-step approach to assess a smart city plan vis-a-vis citizen participation. Furthermore, this study investigates the link between the smart city ambitions of London and the concrete citizen participation levels of several projects within their smart city strategy. From the qualitative coding and classification we formulate a first proposition for further scientific elaboration on the relationship between the potential levels of citizen participation in a smart city project and the way stakeholders are represented in the project.