Online dating in the United Kingdom is mainstream. Much like in the United States, the best online dating sites in the United Kingdom are full of members looking for love. There is a huge variety of sites here, meaning that you want to stick to the legit sites and ignore the ones that promise the world but fail to deliver. The sites that I mention below are the ones that have been tested and will put you in the best position for success dating in this country.
A British woman
Before I get into the specifics of the top online dating sites, I must mention that your best results will come if you live or stay close to one of the big, populous cities with a lot of singles. Cities like London, Manchester, and Liverpool are target-rich environments chock full of singles looking for love. Another benefit of being in one of these cities is that opportunities for offline dating will also more abundant.
Should you decide to sign up for the online dating sites I recommend below, be sure to read member profiles carefully as you might come across a lot of fake profiles. As a general rule of thumb, the more boring the profile, the more boring the person.
Without further ado, here is the quick list of the top three dating sites in the UK. I’ll go into more detail below.
Dating in the UK
UK.Match.com is the best online dating site in the United Kingdom. UK.Match.com is the UK version of the popular site in the United States, Match.com. Rest assured, the Match.com brand is one of the most powerful in the business, and this UK version is the best the doctor ordered.
Match UK
Match UK is organized well and created using many sophisticated features that are not only reliable but dependable as well. The main drawback, however, is exclusivity, which means unless the user lives in the UK, access to the website’s features is denied. Even if the user is able to login for a while from outside the UK, the security measures will deny access to its core functionality.
Sign-Up Process
Signing up on this website is simple and easy. All you need to do is create a personal profile with information such as your name, gender, birthday, username, password and email address. Once this is done, the next nine optional pages will let you personalize your profile and make it more specialized with data such as your personality, lifestyle, appearance and interest for your ideal matches to see.
How to Locate Potential Matches
There are basically three options for locating your ideal match –
- Basic search: This lets you search for a potential date based on birthday, perfect matches, reverse matches and mutual matches.
- Advanced search: This search method lets you narrow down the search through filters such as age, location, lifestyle and appearance.
- Shuffle: Tinder-like feature which allows you to like or dislike random profile. The website sends notification in case of a mutual match.
How to Communicate with Other Members
Free members can browse or search for other members, send out Flirts and access basic profiles. However, communication with a member needs premium membership through instant upgrade and payment.
Premium members can send messages to potential matches, start chatting with members who are online or add profiles to Favorites. Unfortunately, no audio or video support is available on Match UK.
Unique Site Features
The Match UK website has a number of features that are unique. For example, the Events tab on the top corner of the screen lets you browse through various event listings, host evenings and interests. Evenings are relaxed gatherings with activities such as cocktail classes, photography, cooking or guided tours to exhibitions.
What is Included in Each Membership Level
- Free – Create a profile, upload a photo, search/browse/watch profiles, receive messages, send messages to Connect members, use Shuffle limited
- Premium – Unrestricted use of Shuffle, see who has visited or favorited you, start live chats and message with anyone, customer support
- Extras:
- Incognito Mode – Invisible browsing
- Boost – Boost your profile, advanced placement in search results, extended communication options
eharmony UK
Eharmony is a famous name in the online dating business and is a good third option. When you sign up for this site, you will have to fill out an exhaustive questionnaire which will be used to generate a personality profile that will enable the site’s algorithm to locate matches for you.
A renowned psychologist by the name of Neil Warren founded eharmony. He has authored 10 books on the topic of love and marriage, so he’s quite the expert. eharmony has more than 30,000,000 registered members across the world.
The design and features of the website are among the best, which does make joining a little pricey. However, if you are serious about finding love and a relationship that could lead to marriage, you really couldn’t find a better dating site than eharmony.
Sign up Process
To begin, you provide your name, location, your gender, and match gender. Once that’s done, you’ll fill in your email address, a password,and explain how you found out about eharmony. You will then take a personality test that will take about 40 minutes to finish.
Most of the questions are designed to have you select something on a scale from 1 to 7. There are various sections: how applicable a phrase or word is to you, how much passion or skill you have for a particular activity, how many times you’ve felt a certain emotion over the last month, and your values and style in a relationship.
Once you’ve answered these questions, you go on to write about things you’re grateful for and what you are passionate about. Then you’ll write about what you prefer in a partner along with some details regarding your level of education, your occupation, etc.
Once that’s all done, you’ll upload a photo for your profile if you wish, and your registration is complete. But that doesn’t mean your profile is finished as you’re only halfway there at this point. There are many more sections that need your attention, but these are at your option. These include: life skills, favorite interests, and a question system similar to the one on OkCupid.
How to Locate Potential Matches
As with other dating sites that use personality tests, eharmony doesn’t have the usual search or browse features. Once you’ve finished signing up, eharmony will start comparing the results of your personality test with those of other members in order to find you matches. These can be narrowed down by location and age range. They will present matches to you, and you’ll be allowed to view their profiles only, not their photos.
How to Communicate with Other Members
There is a messaging feature on eharmony that is fairly basic that only supports text messages. It also allows you to send Smiles or move towards sending standard messages using the site’s Guided Communication feature, which is truly amazing and described below.
Once you become a Premium member, you are able to use a Secure Call feature that enables you to call other members, but your information and phone number are kept private.
Unique Site Features
The most unique feature on eharmony’s site, and in my opinion the best one, is the system they’ve set up for Guided Communication. Using this feature, you can break the ice. In 4 easy steps, you can establish a connection with another member.
- Quick Questions – You choose 5 questions out of a total of 55, like “What are your thoughts on traditional gender roles?” and “How and where do you like to travel?” Your match would choose specific options for answers and reply with 5 questions for you.
- Makes or Breaks – This lets you reveal what makes or breaks a relationship in your opinion. Examples of “Make” would be: affectionate and a sense of humor. Examples of “Break” would be cheating and racist.
- Digging Deeper – This allows you to ask questions eharmony has come up with or to write out your own questions. These would be asking things like describing certain personal habits you deem important.
- eharmony Mail – This is the last step in the messaging feature of eharmony. You are allowed to skip over everything else and use this if you prefer.
Hinge
I have had good experiences with Hinge. I did a full review of this dating app here.
Bumble
As another option, I recommend you sign up for Bumble. I did a full review of Bumble here.
Tinder
I am not a huge fan of Tinder. I used it mostly for entertainment purposes. If you have a lot of free time on your hands, you can try Tinder. However, this is only a last-resort option.
Honorable Mentions: Honorable mentions go to Plentyoffish.com, OKCupid.com and Badoo.com. These sites are 100% free, but, as the old story goes, you get what you pay for. I would only sign up for these sites as a last resort. You will spend so much time trying to weed through low quality profiles that you will get very frustrated very quickly.
Online Dating Strategy:
- A lot of what I learned while dating online was through trial and error, planting a lot of seeds in order to get success…learning what works and doesn’t work and refining my approach along the way. You might have your own online dating strategy, and that is cool, but if you don’t and need a starting point, go and buy my e-book, Online Dating Success: How to Find Love Anywhere in the World. In the book I go into detail about how to set up a profile, what I recommend writing for your initial and follow up messages, when to ask the woman/man you’re interested in to go offline for a date, and more.
Further Reading
Worldwide Online Dating Site Reviews: Be sure to check out my country-by-country reviews of the best online dating sites in the world.
Worldwide Moving Guide: Everything you need to know in order to plan your move to 65+ countries around the world.
Worldwide Jobs Guide: If you are interested in working in this country, be sure to check out my posts on how to find jobs in this country and other countries around the world.
Worldwide Apartments Guide: If you are interested in renting an apartment in another country, take a look at my articles on how to find an apartment in various countries around the world.
About Addison Sears-Collins
Hey! I'm Addison Sears-Collins, the founder of Visa Hunter. You can learn more about me here. Connect with me by liking my fan page on Facebook, connecting with me on Twitter, or check out my website Automatic Addison where I build robots and embedded systems.
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