Local services from London Bridge began to be electrified in the beginning of the 20th century, and had spread to national routes by the 1930s.

The National Rail station is served by Southeastern services from Charing Cross and Cannon Street to destinations in southeast London, Kent and East Sussex and is a terminus for many Southern commuter and regional services to south London and numerous destinations in South East England.

Thameslink services from Bedford, Cambridge and Peterborough to Brighton and other destinations in Sussex and Kent began serving the station in 2018.

The directors of the companies involved decided to exchange sites; the London and Greenwich Railway would take over the newly completed London and Croydon Railway station, whilst a new joint committee of the Croydon, Brighton and South Eastern companies would demolish the first station and build a new one on its site.

[19] Plans for a large new station were drawn up, designed jointly by Lewis Cubitt, John Urpeth Rastrick and Henry Roberts.

[21] It opened for business in July 1844 while only partially complete, but events were taking place which would mean that the bell tower would never be built, and the new building would only last five years.

[22] In 1843 the SER and Croydon railway companies became increasingly concerned by the high tolls charged by the London and Greenwich Railway for the use of the station approaches, and gained Parliamentary approval to build their own independent line into south London to a new station at Bricklayers Arms, which was vaguely described as a "West End terminus".

[21] At the same time yet further improvements were made to the station approaches, increasing the number of tracks to six, which entirely separated the lines of the two railways.

[27] Once these extensions were complete the SER closed its passenger terminus at Bricklayer's Arms and converted the site into a goods depot in 1852.

Junctions were laid to enable trains through London Bridge to reach the LC&DR stations at Holborn Viaduct and St Pauls.

A three-storey box-like structure in Italian style was erected, with the name of the railway emblazoned on the top parapet.

[25] In 1859 the LC&DR applied to the LB&SCR for running powers from Sydenham to London Bridge, but was refused.

[31] However, some ticketing arrangement was made between the two companies as the LC&DR advertised connections to and from London Bridge in its timetables in The Times and Bradshaw's Railway Guide for July 1861.

This allowed a greater range of platforms to be used for the increasingly frequent suburban rail services to London Bridge.

[45] Between 1926 and 1928 the Southern Railway electrified the SE&CR suburban lines at London Bridge using a third rail system, adapting the existing LB&SCR routes to it at the same time.

[46] By the 1930s, a regular feature of London Bridge traffic was a glut of commuter services all departing at or shortly after 5:00 pm.

The station remained popular for through routes to the City and the West End, but the number of terminal trains declined significantly by the early 1980s.

[56] A £500 million refurbishment programme was announced by Railtrack in 1999, which would have seen the station complex rotated by 90 degrees, and large amount of shopping space added.

[57] The station was comprehensively redeveloped between 2009 and 2017 with the rebuilding of all platforms, the addition of two major new street-level entrances, and changes to passenger concourses and retail facilities.

It included a new entrance and roof for the terminal level concourse, and a larger bus station was constructed in front of the building.

[61] Work began in 2012 with the terminal platforms adjacent to St Thomas Street, reducing the number from nine to six and extending them to accommodate longer 12-car trains.

A wider route was created through the Western Arcade to Joiner Street and the underground station by relocating existing shops in to renovated barrel vaults.

[74] In October 2022 a rescued Victorian-era church pipe organ, nicknamed "Henry", was installed on the station concourse.

The estimated usage figure fell 78% in 2020/21 to 13.8 million, although it rose in the ranking by one place to the third busiest in the country, behind Stratford and Victoria, both also in London.

The company had been formed on 28 July 1884 with the intention of constructing a line under the Thames from King William Street to Stockwell via Elephant and Castle and Kennington, which opened on 18 December 1890.

King William Street was found to be badly placed owing to a steep incline towards the station from underneath the Thames, which limited its capacity.

[89] In the aftermath of the King's Cross fire in 1987, an independent report recommended that London Underground investigate "passenger flow and congestion in stations and take remedial action".

It opened on 7 October 1999 as part of the Jubilee Line Extension,[93] although trains had been running through non-stop from the previous month.

[94][83] It took months of major engineering works to relocate buried services in the surrounding streets to enable the Jubilee line's construction.

[96] During excavations a variety of Roman remains were found, including pottery and fragments of mosaics; some of these are now on display in the station.