The power of the spoken word, and the impact of a good voice, is undeniable. And it’s also a fact that some accents are simply far more attractive than others. So, the question inevitably arises: what’s the sexiest accent in the UK? According to the folks at the language learning platform Preply, Londoners have come out on top as the voice that most Brits would like to hear on a romantic date.
In February, Preply surveyed 2,000 UK adults from ages 18 to 55 and over, to find out about their attitudes towards a whole host of linguistic and auditory topics. These ranged from “The languages Brits want to learn the most” to “The UK cities with the most difficult accents to understand” and more. Among the results was the discovery that almost one-in-five (17.89%) Brits find the London accent the most attractive.
The UK’s sexiest accent
The London accent proved most popular amongst women, with 20.83% finding it attractive. Meanwhile, just under 15% of men agreed. Both, however, still ranked Londoners as being in possession of the number one sexiest accent.
Coming in at second place was Liverpool, with 10.24% of respondents ranking it at the top, closely followed by Newcastle with 10.19% of the votes. Rounding out the top five sexiest accents were Cardiff and Manchester with 8.9% and 8.7% of the votes respectively.
Down at the bottom of the list was Leeds in 9th place with 4.37% of the votes.
The rest of the survey
Other interesting revelations from the survey include:
- Spanish is the language most Brits want to learn, with 26.99% of respondents most interested in learning the language.
- Almost half of Londoners opted for their own accent when asked which one they found most attractive (47.18%).
- Bristolians have the most trustworthy accent, falling at the bottom of the list of untrustworthy accents with just 4.03% of the vote.
- The Bristol accent was also deemed the least difficult to understand, with just 3.53% of those polled saying it was difficult to understand.
- Glasgow rose to the top of that heap, with 39.46% of votes saying it is the hardest UK accent to understand.
- Despite an international reputation for UK accents as sounding ‘smart’ and ‘sophisticated’, 42.94% of Brits believed that there are no UK cities with intelligent-sounding accents.