The top UK cities looking for love
The dating fever is back in the UK after numerous months of lockdown and isolation. Perfect timing as we approach the romance-filled part of the calendar leading into Christmas and Valentine’s.
Despite dating coming back to the forefront of many people’s lives, Brits have never struggled more to find a match.
According to YouGov 60% of Brits have decided to remain alone since Feb 2020.
Almost half of all active daters stopped looking for matches during the past 18 months, so there’s good news for anyone who has been struggling on dating apps over the past 12 months.
Chris Pleines, a dating expert from datingscout.co.uk said:
“After the world essentially stopped, we suddenly had the time to pause and think.
“For daters, quality starts to matter more than quantity. So, you get a bunch of likes and winks. But in this pandemic, what do these likes and winks actually mean?
“Intimacy and meaning has become a major requirement for some daters. Casual flirts or hookups aren’t enough anymore.
“People go to dating apps hoping to find profound connections and potential for serious relationships.
“Dating apps should shift their perspective from giving high quantity of matches to high quality of matches. People need to socialize and feel less alone in this uncertain world.”
One of the least surprising findings came in that the least likely age group to stop dating all together throughout COVID-19 has been the 18-24 year olds, with 1 in 4 turning to dating apps opposed to the previous concept of meeting in person.
The impact of COVID on dating has been the biggest on the 18-24 year olds with 1 in 3 reporting a “huge reduction” in their sex life.
This is a worrying trend after the marriage rate dropped by almost 70% as less people are wanting to start a family in their 20-30s whilst the shortening of the wage gap gives women more options opposed to marrying early.
The current average age for marriage in the UK is 34 for men and 32 for women compared to 1975 where the ages were 28 and 26 respectively. People are arguably taking longer to tie the knot – the pandemic could change this drastically however.
Multiple dating apps recently reported that they had the most ever number of swipes and matches this year, around the time a pathway out of lockdown was announced.
What are the top 25 cities for people looking for love?
Here are the top 25 cities to visit if you are looking for the most enthusiastic singles:
- Manchester
- Plymouth
- Liverpool
- Brighton
- Bristol
- London
- Birmingham
- Derby
- Swindon
- Bournemouth
- Ipswich
- Belfast
- York
- Portsmouth
- Nottingham
- Exeter
- Cambridge
- Oxford
- Cardiff
- Swansea
- Newcastle
- Sheffield
- Edinburgh
- Leeds
- Hull
Dating apps have had a 60% increase in popularity over the past 90 days, showing that romance is definitely on the rise in a post-lockdown UK.
