Types of British accents: 12 accents of the UK and how they sound

Take a train north from London, and somewhere in the Midlands the word bath changes.

In London it has a long “ah”: “BAHTH”. In Manchester it has the short a of cat. Stay on into Scotland and you will often hear the r come back too, so car ends with an r you can hear. Every one of those speakers sounds British. They just sound British in different ways.

That is the honest answer to anyone looking for the types of British accents: there are a lot of them, and they are easier to tell apart than they first seem. A few sounds do most of the work. Learn to listen for them and you can tell which part of the UK most speakers come from.

Here are twelve you will hear, what gives each one away, and which one to learn yourself.

How many accents are there in the UK?

There is no official number, and there can’t really be one.

You will find guides that say the UK has “almost 40” accents. None of the guides I have read says where the number comes from. Accents don’t stop at a border. They shade into each other from one town to the next, and they change with age and class as well as place. Two people from the same city can sound quite different.

So linguists group accents rather than count them. J. C. Wells, in Accents of English, the standard reference on the subject, describes the accents of the British Isles region by region: London, the South and the North of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. This guide follows a similar map, and picks out the best-known accents inside each region.

One more thing worth knowing before you start. The accent most people picture when they hear “a British accent” is Received Pronunciation, or RP. Yet it is not the everyday accent of most British people. The linguist Peter Trudgill estimated in 1974 that about 3% of people in Britain spoke it. Most of the voices you hear on a British street are regional.

Three questions that place an accent

Before the tour, here is the shortcut. Most accents in Britain give themselves away on three words. Listen for these, and you can usually tell which part of the country a speaker comes from.

1. Do they say the r in car?

In Modern RP, an r is only pronounced when a vowel sound comes straight after it, so car, hard and water end without one. Linguists call this non-rhotic. Most accents of England and Wales work the same way. Accents that do say the r are called rhotic, and in Britain you hear them mainly in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the West Country. If you hear the r in car, start looking there. The British vs American accent guide explains the rule in full.

2. Does bath have a long “ah”?

In Modern RP, words such as bath, grass, after, dance and path take the long “ah” of father. In much of the Midlands and the North they keep the short a of cat. This is called the trap–bath split: in the South, trap and bath have different vowels, and in the North they share one.

3. Does cut rhyme with put?

In Modern RP, cut and put have different vowels: the u in cut is an open “uh”. Across the Midlands and the North, they rhyme. Cut, bus, love and mum all take the vowel of put. The boundary runs across the middle of England, and it is one of the main divides between northern and southern accents.

Put the three together and you have a rough map. A long “ah” in bath and no r in car: the South East. A short a and cut rhyming with put: the Midlands or the North. An r in car: Scotland, Northern Ireland or the West Country.

The South of England

Modern RP

Modern RP is the accent of many BBC presenters and the one British dictionaries describe. It drops the r after a vowel, keeps a crisp t in water (“WOR-tuh”, r silent), uses the long “ah” in bath, and starts the o in no on a relaxed “uh”. Its roots are in the South East, but it is the one accent in Britain that doesn’t tell you which town a speaker grew up in.

It is also not the clipped voice of old films. That older, conservative form still exists, but most people who speak RP today sound more relaxed. The guide to Received Pronunciation covers how it changed.

Cockney

Cockney is the traditional working-class accent of London’s East End. By tradition, a true Cockney is born within the sound of Bow Bells, the bells of St Mary-le-Bow in the City of London.

Listen for three things. The th in think becomes an f, and the th in brother becomes a v: “fink” and “bruvver”. The t in the middle of a word becomes a glottal stop, a small catch in the throat, so butter sounds like “bu’er”. And the h at the start of a word often disappears: “’ouse” for house. Cockney is also the home of rhyming slang, where apples and pears means stairs.

Estuary English

Estuary English is named after the Thames estuary, and it is heard across London and the counties around it. David Rosewarne gave it its name in 1984. He described it as sitting in the middle of a range, with RP at one end and London speech at the other.

An Estuary speaker usually keeps the h that Cockney drops and the th that Cockney turns into f or v, but borrows other London features. The t at the end of a word often becomes a glottal stop: “ge’ i’” for get it. And an l at the end of a syllable can turn into a sound close to w, so milk sounds like “miwk”.

Multicultural London English

Multicultural London English, often shortened to MLE, is a newer accent. It grew up among young people in the multilingual neighbourhoods of inner London, mixing features of Cockney with features from the many languages spoken there. Researchers studying the East End have found that, among young people, MLE is taking the place of traditional Cockney. Listen for the h: many MLE speakers keep the h at the start of house that traditional Cockney drops.

West Country

The West Country is the South West of England, including Bristol, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. Its accents stand out in the South because they are rhotic. Where Modern RP says car and farm with no r, a West Country speaker often pronounces it. That one sound can remind some listeners of an American accent.

The Midlands and the North

North of a line that runs roughly across the middle of England, two things change for most speakers. Bath takes the short a of cat, and cut rhymes with put. You will hear both in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Newcastle. What follows is what makes each city sound like itself.

Brummie

Brummie is the accent of Birmingham. One feature to listen for is the vowel in words such as my, time and line. In the broadest Brummie, that vowel starts with rounded lips, close to the “oy” of boy, so line and loin can sound the same.

Yorkshire

Yorkshire has many local accents, from Sheffield to Leeds to the Dales. Beyond the northern vowels, the best-known feature is what happens to the. In many Yorkshire accents it shrinks to a single consonant with no vowel, often written t’: “off to t’ shop”.

Scouse

Scouse is the accent of Liverpool. To hear it, listen to the consonants. A k at the end of a word, as in back or like, can soften into a breathy, throaty sound, close to the ch in the Scottish loch. A t between vowels or at the end of a word can soften into a hiss in the same way.

Scouse also merges two vowels that Modern RP keeps apart. Fair and fur, or stare and stir, can sound the same.

Geordie

Geordie is the accent of Newcastle upon Tyne, in the North East. Its best-known word is town, which in traditional Geordie is “toon”. That is why Newcastle is often called “the Toon”. In the oldest, broadest Geordie, work can sound close to walk.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Scottish English

Scottish English is rhotic: the r in car, hard and first is pronounced, often as a quick tap of the tongue. It also has fewer long and short vowel pairs than Modern RP, so pull and pool can sound the same. And it keeps a sound most English accents have lost, the throaty ch of loch.

Scottish English is not the same thing as Scots, a closely related language with its own words and grammar. Many Scottish speakers move between the two, which is one reason Scottish speech varies so much.

Welsh English

Most Welsh English is non-rhotic, like Modern RP. What gives it away is the rhythm and the melody, which listeners often describe as musical. Consonants between vowels can also be held a little longer, so money sounds closer to “MUN-nee”, with a longer n.

Northern Irish English

Northern Irish English is rhotic, like Scottish English. Its most noticeable feature is the melody. In many Northern Irish accents, especially around Belfast, ordinary statements rise in pitch at the end. Listeners from elsewhere sometimes hear that rise as a question, when the speaker is simply telling them something.

You can hear real recordings of speakers from all over England in the International Dialects of English Archive, and short descriptions of five accents of England, with sound clips, at Accent Bias Britain.

All twelve at a glance

Which British accent should you learn?

Every accent on this list is a real British accent, and none is more correct than another.

But if you are learning English and want to sound British, one choice makes life much easier. Modern RP is the accent behind the UK pronunciations in the Cambridge and Oxford dictionaries. When you look up a pronunciation, it will match what you are learning. It is widely understood across the UK, and it doesn’t place you in any one town.

One honest note. If you live in Glasgow or Liverpool and talk mostly with local people, their accent may be the one you want, and that is a good choice too. Either way, the three questions above will help you hear the accent you are aiming for. For most learners, though, the place to start is Modern RP.

How to start

You don’t need to learn twelve accents. You need to hear them, and then choose one.

1. Listen for the three questions. Next time you watch something British, ask: is there an r in car? A long “ah” in bath? Does cut rhyme with put? With practice, you will start placing speakers without trying.
2. Pick your model. For most learners that is Modern RP. Find a few speakers you like, such as BBC newsreaders, and listen to them often.
3. Start with the r. Dropping the r after a vowel is the change you will use in nearly every sentence. Try car park, first floor and more water without a single r.

For a step-by-step plan, read how to do a British accent. Sterling is your AI-powered accent coach that teaches you how to speak English with a British accent confidently and clearly. Curious which accent yours sounds closest to today? Take the free accent test and find out in about a minute.