Methodology

Every FCA-regulated broker requires the same onboarding process. This isn't a broker design choice — it's a legal requirement. Before a broker can give you access to a live account, they must collect and verify the following:

• Identity: passport or driving licence
• Address: utility bill or bank statement dated within 3 months
• Employment and income: FCA Know Your Customer (KYC) requirement
• Appropriateness test: questions about leverage, margin, and risk — required before accessing CFD or spread betting accounts
• Bank account ownership: a bank statement confirming the account is in your name, because no FCA-regulated broker accepts third-party deposits

The process takes 10–30 minutes to complete. Verification speed varies — some brokers use automated document checks that approve in minutes; others involve a manual review that takes a working day. That variation is the only meaningful difference in the onboarding experience between platforms.

We don't score onboarding per broker because there is nothing substantive to score. When a review says “onboarding was smooth” it means the broker met their regulatory obligations. That's the floor, not a feature. We note whether verification was fast or slow where it was genuinely notable, and we leave it there.

Spreads on major forex pairs cluster within a competitive range across most UK retail brokers — the market enforces that. The things that genuinely differ are structural, and most comparison sites either ignore them or bury them in bullet points. Here is what we actually evaluate:

Execution policy

How a broker routes your orders matters more than most traders realise. Straight-through processing (STP) and ECN models pass your orders directly to liquidity providers. Market makers take the other side of your trade. Neither is inherently problematic — but knowing which model applies, and reading the broker's best execution policy, tells you more about actual fill quality than their spread marketing does. We read the execution policy for every broker we review and note the model clearly.

FSCS eligibility

Binary. Either the entity holding your account is directly FCA authorised — making eligible deposits protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme up to £85,000 — or it isn't. Brokers operating under European licences (CySEC, Central Bank of Ireland) or offshore licences for UK clients do not provide FSCS coverage. This is not a technicality. If a broker fails, the difference between FSCS eligibility and no FSCS eligibility is the difference between recovering your funds and not. We state this clearly for every broker.

Spread betting vs CFD — what “tax-free” actually means

When a broker advertises “trade tax-free,” they mean a spread betting account, not a CFD account. Spread betting profits are exempt from Capital Gains Tax and income tax in the UK. CFD profits are not — they are subject to CGT above the annual allowance. The two account types can look similar on a platform but carry meaningfully different tax treatment.

Not every broker offers spread betting. It is a UK-specific product and requires a separate FCA permission. IG and CMC Markets offer it alongside CFDs; Capital.com and Pepperstone do not. If tax efficiency is a consideration in your trading strategy, this distinction matters and we note it in every relevant review.

24/7 trading availability

Crypto markets don't close. Some brokers also offer weekend trading on major indices. Others go dark from Friday evening to Sunday night, leaving positions exposed to gap risk over the weekend with no way to act on news. If you trade outside standard market hours, or want the option to manage positions at the weekend, check this before opening an account. We note actual trading hours per broker rather than assuming “standard hours” across the board.

Customer support hours

Support hours matter most when something goes wrong at 2am — a position stuck open, a withdrawal delayed, a platform issue during volatile markets. A lot of “24/7 support” in broker marketing means a chatbot overnight and a human during business hours. We note what's actually available and through which channels, rather than restating the marketing claim.

This is the criterion that gets the least editorial attention in broker comparisons and the one that has the most practical impact on daily trading. If you are actively trading — watching for setups, monitoring positions, waiting for entry points — you are looking at the platform for hours at a time.

A cluttered interface, a deal ticket buried three clicks from the chart, tools that require a separate tab or a second screen: these are not minor annoyances. They are friction on every trade. A clean UI that puts execution where you expect it, charting you can read without concentrating on the interface itself, and tools that are integrated rather than bolted on — that is a genuine edge in a session where you are making time-sensitive decisions.

What we evaluate on platform

• Whether charting is native to the platform or powered by TradingView integration — and whether TradingView allows multi-broker trading within the same interface
• Whether deal tickets are accessible directly from the chart or require navigating away
• Whether tools (news, signals, analysis) are integrated within the platform or require opening something separately
• How the platform handles multiple instruments — whether switching between markets adds friction
• Mobile vs desktop vs web experience — these can differ significantly on the same broker
• Cognitive load — how much attention the interface itself demands versus the market

MetaTrader 4 and MT5 are powerful platforms with a large plugin ecosystem and strong automated trading support. The desktop UI also looks and feels like it was designed in the late 1990s. That is a real trade-off worth stating, and we state it. The web and mobile versions of MT4/MT5 are materially better than desktop — that distinction matters for how you plan to use the platform.

We don't review brokers from a spec sheet. Every broker reviewed on this site has been tested with a real account opened under standard UK retail conditions — going through the onboarding process, depositing funds, executing trades, and testing withdrawals.

The reason this matters: a lot of what is genuinely interesting about a broker only becomes visible when you are actually using it. The way Capital.com's interface reduces friction is not something you can convey in a feature bullet point. The way IBKR's complexity is clearly intentional — built for experienced traders, not an accident of poor design — only becomes clear when you have used both it and something simpler. The difference between how MetaTrader feels on desktop versus web versus mobile is not in the spec sheet at all.

We do not write reviews for brokers we haven't traded on. If a broker appears in the database without a full review, testing is pending. First-hand observations are labelled as such in reviews — these are the parts that AI content and spec-sheet comparisons cannot replicate.

What first-hand testing covers

• Full onboarding under UK retail conditions (to confirm the process, not to score it)
• Live or demo account execution across representative instruments
• Platform usability across mobile, web, and desktop where available
• Deposit and withdrawal process (to confirm it functions, not to treat it as a differentiator)
• Tool and charting integration — what is in-platform versus what requires something external
• Support accessibility — what channel, what hours, what quality of response

The broker matching tool uses a structured, rules-based scoring system to identify brokers that align with your stated preferences. It does not use personal data, behavioural tracking, or predictive modelling. Results are generated solely from the inputs you select.

How it works

Your selections — country, instrument, experience level, and priority — are translated into a trading profile. That profile determines which broker attributes are weighted most heavily. For example:

• A beginner prioritising regulation is treated as a safety-focused new trader — FSCS eligibility and direct FCA authorisation carry greater weight.
• An advanced user prioritising low fees for forex is treated as a high-frequency trader — raw spread accounts and commission structure are foregrounded.
• A stock investor selecting UK investing options is screened for real share ownership — CFD-only brokers are excluded or penalised.

Eligibility screening

Before scoring, brokers are screened for structural suitability: availability in your selected country, instrument availability, real share ownership where required, and regulatory alignment where prioritised. Brokers that don't meet structural requirements are excluded before scoring begins.

Scoring dimensions

• Regulation and client protection (FCA direct, FSCS eligibility)
• Instrument fit
• Experience alignment
• Priority match (cost vs platform vs regulation)
• Pricing model and account structure
• Platform compatibility

Limitations

• The tool does not account for your financial situation.
• It does not provide personalised financial advice.
• It does not predict performance or evaluate real-time spread changes.
• Results are designed to assist comparison — not replace independent research.

Brokers featured on our best pages were selected and ranked using the criteria described above — with weight adjusted for the specific audience of each page. For example:

• On best low-cost brokers, pricing structure (raw spread account availability, commission model) carries greater weight than platform design.
• On best brokers for beginners, platform usability and support quality are prioritised over professional-grade execution features.
• On best regulated brokers, FSCS eligibility and direct FCA authorisation take priority — brokers without full UK FCA authorisation are excluded or ranked lower.

Total cost of trading — not just headline spread — is used for pricing comparisons. This means spread plus commission, financing charges, currency conversion fees, and account type differences. A 0.6 pip spread without commission may be cheaper or more expensive than a 0.0 pip raw spread with commission depending on trade size and frequency.

Rankings are not adjusted based on affiliate status. Several brokers ranked well on this site have no affiliate programme.

Head-to-head comparisons are designed to highlight structural differences — the things that actually change which broker is the right choice — rather than declare a universal winner. Most comparisons don't produce one, because the right answer depends on what you are trading, how often, and what you need the platform to do.

What we compare

• Regulatory structure — direct FCA authorisation, FSCS eligibility, entity structure
• Pricing model — spread-only vs commission plus raw spread, and which account types carry which structure
• Platform and charting — what's native, what's integrated, how the experience differs
• Product coverage — CFDs, direct ownership, ISA, SIPP, spread betting availability
• 24/7 trading and support availability
• Known structural limitations — the things each broker doesn't do

We do not compare promotional offers, temporary spreads, or short-term incentives. Those change. Structural differences between brokers don't.

Independence

Affiliate partnerships may exist with brokers referenced. These partnerships do not influence the evaluation structure or outcome.