If you are seeking the best WordPress hosting picks for those in the UK, you’re in the right place!
In this guide, I have tested and reviewed several WordPress web hosting providers to see how they actually stack up.
Also, since this very website uses the WordPress platform, I was able to get some invaluable insights into how they actually perform in the United Kingdom. Let’s get started! 😃
Did You Know:
WordPress.org actually recommends 3 web hosting providers for their platform?
This recommendation means there is less speculation and guesswork for those creating a WordPress website. It also shows that these providers have already been vetted and put to the test for such things as speed, uptime, and support.
Because of this, I will review these WordPress recommended web hosting providers followed by some other notable mentions. Let’s begin!
Top 7 Best WordPress Hosting UK Providers 2024
1. BlueHost: Overall Best WordPress Web Host
1-click WordPress install: Yes
Free domain & SSL: Yes
Storage: 50GB
Bandwidth: Unmetered
Price: £2.33/mo
Activate 50% BlueHost Discount
Taking the top podium position on this list has definitely got to be BlueHost.
Out of all the thousands of hosting companies out there, WordPress recommends BlueHost as their number one pick for WordPress websites. This alone is no easy feat as hosting the competition is fierce!
Side note: Even this very website (along with 2 million others) is made with WordPress and is hosted with BlueHost.
As for their beginner shared hosting plan (which this website uses), it gives users 50GB of SSD storage, unmetered bandwidth, free domain and SSL certificate, 1-click WordPress Install, and 24/7 customer support.
These features allow for fast load times with 437ms average speeds from London and an average uptime of 99.99%. Not bad!
When it comes to the cost, BlueHost has a highly competitive price tag of only £2.33/mo (when signing up for the 3-year plan) which is simply awesome value. BlueHost also charge in GBP.
While BlueHost does have the #1 WordPress recommendation behind them, they are able to back it up with a great service.
Being a Bluehost customer myself and building multiple WordPress websites using their platform, they hands down are my #1 best WordPress hosting UK recommendation!
To learn more, you check out my full BlueHost review and best UK web hosting guide.
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2. DreamHost: Top WordPress Web Host With Some Storage Limitations
1-click WordPress install: Yes
Free domain & SSL: Yes
Storage: 20GB
Bandwidth: Unmetered
Price: £3.00/mo
Activate 47% DreamHost Discount
Next up in this list is non-other than DreamHost which currently hosts over 1.5 million websites and has been around since 1996.
DreamHost is also WordPress’s second runner up in their web hosting recommendations list and for good reason.
On paper, DreamHost’s shared web hosting plan is very impressive. Their beginner plan boasts 20GB of SSD storage, free domain and SSL, 1-click WordPress installs, and also unlimited bandwidth.
As for DreamHost’s speeds and uptime, they are quite good with an average London speed of 612ms and an uptime of 99.98%.
Another big benefit of DreamHost is that they offer a 97-day money-back guarantee. If for some reason you’re not happy with their service.
While DreamHost is slightly more expensive than Bluehost (£3.00/mo for the 3-year plan). They are nonetheless a fantastic WordPress host! Unfortunately, they don’t charge in GBP.
3. SiteGround: Incredibly Fast WordPress Web Host
1-click WordPress install: Yes
Free domain & SSL: No
Storage: 10GB
Bandwidth: 10,000 visitors
Price: £2.95/mo
Activate 67% SiteGround Price
Next on my list of best WordPress hosting UK picks is SiteGround which is renowned for its phenomenal customer support and fast speeds.
Started in 2004, SiteGround has now become one of the top WordPress focused web hosts with over 500,000 websites hosted and counting.
SiteGround also comes in third place on WordPress’s recommendations list which is another testament to their brand.
As for their features, SiteGround offers up 10GB of storage, bandwidth limited to 10,000 visitors/mo, and a 1-click WordPress install process. Unfortunately, they don’t provide a free domain name, but they do have included SSL.
On paper, these features are less than the above providers, but what makes SiteGround stand out are their sever locations which are based in the UK, USA, and Asia.
Having a London based server allows SiteGround to deliver speeds of around 237ms and an average uptime of 99.99% to UK internet searchers.
While SiteGround is a bit more pricer (£2.95/mo, with a more steep renewal rate), they are one of the best providers out there for all types of WordPress websites. Plus they also charge in GBP. Also, don’t forget to check out my SiteGround review!
More Top WordPress Web Hosting UK Picks (Non-WP Recommended)
While WordPress only recommends three web hosts, there are many other great providers out there that also deserve some attention. Below are some standout providers for those starting a WordPress website.
4. HostPapa: Great Cheap WordPress Web Host
1-click WordPress install: Yes
Free domain & SSL: Yes
Storage: 100GB
Bandwidth: Unmetered
Price: £1.95/mo
Activate 70% HostPapa Discount
Next up on my list is a great provider that usually gets overshadowed by the bigger players.
But don’t let HostPapas name fool you. When drilling down into the benefits of their beginner shared web hosting plan, they deliver quite a lot.
Some standouts are their whopping 100GB SSD storage, unmetered bandwidth, free domain (includes .co.uk and .uk), CDN integration, 1-click WordPress install, and also free website transfers.
When it comes to the price, HostPapas beginner plans start from only £1.95/mo which is currently 70% discounted.
As an added bonus, HostPapa also has a Pop (Point of Presence) in Manchester, UK which delivers up great speeds for locals. Overall a great web host!
5. A2 Hosting: Best “Unlimited” WordPress Web Host
1-click WordPress install: Yes
Free domain & SSL: No
Storage: Unlimited
Bandwidth: Unlimited
Price: £3.11/mo
Activate 51% A2 Hosting Price
Moving onto the next provider in this list is A2 Hosting which is a data king!
While the above web hosts have limited amounts of storage, A2 Hosting bolsters an unlimited amount of storage and bandwidth which is great for larger websites.
As for their beginner shared plan (which hosts a single website), it has 5 databases, free SSL and SSD, free site migrations, cPanel, and an “anytime money-back guarantee”. Unfortunately, there is no free domain name included.
A2 Hosting also has 4 server locations around the world with the closest server to the UK located in Amsterdam.
When it comes to the price, A2’s beginner WordPress plan starts from £3.11/mo with the option of upgrading to host multiple websites.
Overall, A2 Hosting is an outstanding web host for those who need the data and storage.
6. Hostinger: Cheapest WordPress Web Hosting Pick UK
1-click WordPress install: Yes
Free domain & SSL: No
Storage: 10GB
Bandwidth: 100GB
Price: £0.80/mo
Activate 90% Hostinger Discount
Next on my lineup of the best WordPress hosting UK pick is the stupidly cheap and surprisingly value-packed Hostinger.
Straight off the bat, you can see that Hostinger has a ridiculous price of only 80p/mo when opting for their 4-year plan. Which gives a grand total of £38.40 for 4 years of hosting!
On a side note, this rate is 90% discounted, so after the 4 years is up. It will revert back to its original price. But nonetheless great value.
As for their features, Hostinger has 100GB of bandwidth, 10GB of storage, 1-click WordPress install, and 1 email account.
Unfortunately, Hostinger doesn’t offer up a free SSL, free domain name or daily backups which you will have to fork out for yourself.
Overall Hostinger is still a great web host for those on a shoestring budget.
To learn more, also see my guide on the top cheap web hosting providers for those in the UK.
7. HastGator: Best Cloud WordPress Web Host
1-click WordPress install: Yes
Free domain & SSL: Yes
Storage: Unmetered
Bandwidth: Unmetered
Price: £2.75/mo
Activate 60% HostGator Discount
Last but not least on this list of best WordPress web hosts for those in the United Kingdom is none other than HostGator!
When I made my first website 9 years ago, HostGator was my WordPress host of choice, and I still use them to this day.
While HostGator provides stellar value, I have found that BlueHost edges ahead when it comes to speed and ease of use.
In saying that however, HostGator has upped their game and provided a more beginner-friendly cPanel and dashboard.
As for their features, they have unmetered bandwidth/ storage, free SSL and domain, instant backups and 24/7 customer support. Overall, a great pick.
How I Reviewed The Best WordPress Hosting UK Providers
While I have only included web hosts that are officially recommended by WordPress. There are also other things to consider other than just a recommendation.
Even though these WordPress recommended hosts are great, how do they stack up for those in the UK? Do they have UK or EU based servers? Or what about charing in GBP?
These questions and more are some of the things that I reviewed and ranked in this list.
As I have touched on briefly above, I have only included WordPress recommended web hosts straight from WordPress themselves.
As there are thousands of web hosts out there that meet the requirements for WordPress. There are only a handful that allow WordPress made websites to prosper.
Also since WordPress hosts 29% of all websites on the internet, their recommendation carries a lot of weight as they have put these hosts to the test. Because of this, I have taken the guesswork out and only included WordPress recommended providers at the top of this list.
Another important thing that I considered in my reviews is that all web hosts should provide 1-click WordPress installs.
This means that after a new user signs up, they can literally have a new WordPress website up and running in under 5 minutes. Yup. It really is that quick and literally only takes a few clicks.
If you want to learn how to make a website from scratch, you can see how to make a WordPress website guide UK. In there you will see my step by step process plus how you can also optimise your website for speed and more traffic.
I’ve droned about this many times on this website, but having a fast website in this day and age is critical! With a slow website, it will literally lose you money. No joke!
For every 1 second, your website takes to load, the likelihood of that visitor staying plummets by 11% per second. So even if your website takes 4 seconds to load, there’s a 44% chance that visitor will be gone!
Because of this, I have only included WordPress web hosts that provide fast speeds for those in the UK. Ideally under 1 second.
While speed is critical for any website, another important factor is uptime. Another way to think of uptime is the amount of time your website is successfully running online.
For example, an uptime of 90% would equal 10% of the time when your website is not accessible via the internet. While 90% sounds alright, this is a catastrophic scenario for any website.
To continue with the 90% uptime example, this means a website would be offline for a total of 3.1 days per month. Ouch! Since uptime is such an integral part of any web host, the providers in this list have a minimum uptime of at least 99.80%.
Web hosting companies are great at making a complicated system very simple. Which is great. But as we all know, the preverbal tends to hit the fan from time to time.
I for one have made many mistakes such as including a buggy plugin, accidentally deleting a website and heaps more. When I make silly mistakes like these, I will need some help to rectify them quickly and easily.
This is when having WordPress trained customer service personal is paramount as they can go ahead and fix almost any WordPress issue that arises.
This could be anything from migrating a WordPress website, uninstalling a faulty plugin or theme, updating PHP code, install caching and heaps more.
Another thing I considered was the amount of bandwidth that the WordPress web host included. While server storage is the amount of files that you store on a server, bandwidth is the flow of this information over the internet.
So by having ample amounts of bandwidth, this will ensure that you can get a good amount of traffic and not have your website crash or get slowed down by the host.
Many good hosting providers will actually include unlimited or unmetered bandwidth (within reason). From my own experience with “unlimited bandwidth”, I have consistently been able to get 6,000 visits a day on a shared web hosting plan which is good for any new or small website.
While bandwidth is the ebb and flow of data over the internet, server storage is the amount of storage you are allocated for your WordPress hosting plan.
As a good rule of thumb, a WordPress website is about 1GB in size. This includes the WordPress software which is about 250mb plus any other files such as plugins, themes, content, photos, videos, and audio.
While it’s unlikely that you will ever run out of online storage, having the extra storage incase the situation arises is reassuring. For example, I am on a shared hosting plan which hosts over 10 websites. Even though this might seem like a lot, I have nowhere near scratched the surface of my allocated storage.
When we create a website, we, of course, want to keep prices to a minimum, so any free add-ons is a massive win. One particular product that many web hosts provide is a free domain name for the first year of registration.
Typically this is a free .com, .net or .co domain name, but some also include a .co.uk for British based websites. While this is only a free domain for the first year (typically), it is nonetheless a great bonus and is one less thing you’ll have to pay for.
While on domains, I have also only included providers that have a cheap renewal price as many will hike up the fees after the first year. To learn more, you can see my guide on the best domain registrars UK for .co.uk and .uk domains.
As this guide is made for those in the UK, having servers located in the UK or Europe is a massive advantage, as it will typically deliver faster speeds.
Since the server is geographically closer to the internet searcher (this is if they are searching from the UK). The speeds will be faster as there is simply less distance for the data to travel as opposed to North America.
While not every web host in his list has UK based servers, they are all nonetheless still very fast. Also, there is the option of adding a CDN (Content Delivery Network) that will give your website almost instant load times, no matter where the internet searcher is from.
While this one is not essential, it is a good bonus if the web host charges in British Pounds. This just means there is less confusion when it comes to billing as you won’t have to convert USD to GBP.
How To Speed Up Your WordPress Website
Even though you might pick an amazing host, there is only so much they can do to give you fast speeds. This is where a large portion of the responsibly falls onto the website owner to maintain speeds.
During the past 9 years of making websites, I have had to learn things the hard way and have made many mistakes along the way.
So to avoid the same mistakes that I have made, here are some proven methods to speed up your British based WordPress website.
Install a Caching Plugin
One sure-fire way to speed up your website is to install a caching plugin. I’ve touched on this briefly in other guides, but in essence, caching is a method of delivery a so-called “pre-loaded” version of your website to a visitor.
Another way I like to think about it is like those cooking shows where they already have a pre-prepared roast to show to the audience. Well, the same applies to caching. Also if someone is to come back to your website, they will have an even faster user experience.
To get started, you can install some free caching plugins straight into WordPress. Some of my favourites are WP Super Cache and WP Rocket. Once you have it installed, simply go ahead and click “Activate Caching” to boost your website’s speed!
Compress your images
Another great tip to speed up your WordPress website is to either compress or convert your images to JPEG format. I for one have been guilty of this for the longest time. I used to upload 3Mb photos into blog posts that were only shown as a tiny image.
As you might have guessed, after adding a few of these large photos onto an article, the speed was verrryyy sloowwww! So slow in fact that I was actually losing traffic as my website was taking so long to load.
So what I did was convert these images to a smaller size and then convert them to a JPEG format. Once I had done this, my load times were about 5 times faster.
For compressing and converting, there are some great free online tools such as PNG2JPEG and compresJPEG.
Use a premium or lightweight theme
While this isn’t a must-have, opting for a premium theme (they usually cost around £50), is a really good route to take if you have the budget. By doing so, you are allowing your website to operate on a fast, responsive, lightweight and SEO optimised WordPress theme.
There definitely are great themes out there for free, but I have found the paid ones give the best results and are much quicker to design with. Some notable ones are Divi, StudioPress, and ThemeForrest.
Choose a WordPress recommended web host
As this guide is on the best WordPress hosting UK picks, it would only make sense to pick a WordPress recommended web host right? And yes, you would be right with that one!
By choosing a web host that is officially endorsed by WordPress, it will allow your website to perform extremely well and knowing that you will have great customer support that will have your back.
Don’t Use Too Many Plugins
Another trap that I have fallen into when making WordPress websites is by using way too many plugins! For every plugin that you do download, there is more code for a browser to load behind the scenes.
Even though you might have a clean looking and minimal website if you have dozens of plugins behind the scenes. Your website will no doubt load slow, no matter how many optimisations that you make.
So as a good rule, ask yourself whether that plugin will really enhance your website. If not, it’s most likely not worth it. Also if you look into WordPress itself, there are TONS of inbuilt features such as tables, quotes, sliders, dividers that remove the need for a plugin.
What Is WordPress?
Since this guide is all about the best WordPress hosts in the UK, I should really cover what WordPress is and how it affects those making a website.
When it comes down to it, WordPress is essentially a website builder that allows bloggers, small business owners, corporations, online stores and more to make a website with ease.
Instead of having to create a website from scratch (which includes a ton of code such as HTML and PHP). WordPress has already set up the foundation in which layers such as themes and plugins adjust the look and functionality of a website.
While there are many website builders out there, also known as a CMS (Content Management Systems), WordPress is by far the most widely loved and used.
This widespread popularity is mainly put down to its open-source nature in which developers from all around the world can work on the website builder. Just like Wikipedia, WordPress has an amazing community behind it that allows the platform to be what it is today.
Also before there is any update to WordPress, there is a thorough review process to ensure every update is secure, fast and reliable.
Also like Wikipedia, WordPress is a completely free platform that is primarily made by volunteer developers. Since WordPress is a free platform, it has become a goto website builder since 2001.
What Can You Do With WordPress?
While I’m on the topic of what WordPress is, I will also cover the different types of things that you can do with WordPress, just so you can see how awesome this platform really is!
Post pages & posts: If you want to create an “About Page” or a blog post, WordPress allows you to do this in only a few clicks. Their text editor is super simple and allows you to format it to look amazing!
Image sliders: To really make a website pop, you can add in image sliders with ease on WordPress that can showcase your work. This can be easily integrated into the homepage or within a post with a simple plugin.
Contact forms: Like any good website builder, WordPress also has built-in contact forms right within their platform. Simply click a button and you can have a contact form anywhere on a website.
Drag and drop: These days drag and drop seem to be all the rage! And well, I can see why. It’s an incredibly easy and fast way to make a website. While WordPress doesn’t natively have these features, add-on page builders like Divi and Elementor make this very easy todo.
Tables: Also built right into WordPress is the ability to add in charts and tables with just a few clicks. Also since WordPress released the new Gutenberg, this has become even easier.
SEO optimisation: Another great benefit of WordPress is that they have SEO in mind. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation which enables you to increase your search ranks with Google. This means more traffic and income.
Download plugins: Hands down one of the best advantages of WordPress are their plugins. There are seriously ten of thousands of free plugins available for everything under the sun from backups, image compression, caching, anti-spam, CDN’s and tons more.
Install different themes: Much like plugins, WordPress also offers thousands of free themes for all types of websites. If you can think it, you’ll most likely find a theme for it. Some of the most notable ones are for e-commerce, one-page websites, small business websites, portfolio websites, news websites, and even forums!
Different Types Of Websites You Can Make With WordPress
Ok, so WordPress can do a lot! But what type of website can you actually make with WordPress?
Well, if you can think of it, odds are there is a website out there that is made with WordPress. Here are just a few types of websites that you could make with WordPress.
- E-commerce website
- Small business websites
- Forums
- Membership websites
- Photography websites
- Podcasting websites
- Affiliate websites
- Drop shipping websites
- One page websites
- Cafe/ Restaurant websites
- Online ordering websites
- Consulting websites
- Personal websites
This is literally only scratching the surface as to what you can make with WordPress.
Top WordPress Websites In The UK
To get a better understanding of WordPress, here are several major worldwide websites that are made with WordPress.
Even the UK government chooses to use WordPress on some of their projects. One of the most notable is the National Archives websites which is a home to many records and documents.
Yup, even the British Sun newspaper is opting to use WordPress as their website builder and content management system of course. As The Sun posts dozens of articles a day, WordPress is actually a great system to publish, edit and update articles for a global platform.
Another WordPress user is the studio heaver hitter Walt Disney. While this is a moderately simple website, it just shows that even one of the biggest corporations chooses to use this simple website builder.
TechCrunch is considering one of the most reputable and high traffic tech websites in the globe. As a tech focus company, it then comes at no surprise that they opt for the WordPress platform.
For those streaming BBC overseas, this website is a go-to destination for BBC classics. One of the standout features of this website, however, is the streaming capabilities that WordPress is able to achieve.
How To Install WordPress
When it comes to installing WordPress on your web host, it literally is a one-click process. While I have written a guide on how to make a WordPress website.
But if you’re in a rush, I’ll briefly touch on how you can Install WP with BlueHost so you can get started with your new website sooner! For this mini-guide, I’ll be using BlueHost, but the same steps are very similar across most web hosts.
Step 1: Choose Your Domain Name
When signing up with BlueHost, you’ll first be given the option to choose a free domain name. If you’ve already got one, such as a .co.uk, you can simply insert the domain name and click next.
Side note: If you plan on making a global website, then a .com or a .net would be an ideal choice. This is because it allows you to get global traffic. A .co.uk, on the other hand, is typically reserved for British based websites and to get local traffic.
Step 2: Skip Recommended WordPress Themes
After you have inserted your chosen domain name and signed up. BlueHost will then provide the option to install a theme to get started.
While some of these are good, there are thousands more to choose from which will likely best cater for your website. To continue, simply click “Skip This Step”.
Step 3: Install WordPress!
Last but not least is todo the 1-click WordPress install. Yup, it really is that easy! Simply click the “Start Building” and WordPress will start to install.
Just keep note that this might take a couple of minutes depending on your internet connection and the speed of the web hosts servers.
Do You Need Web Hosting For WordPress?
In short, yes you will. While you can opt for the free version of WordPress, which is built on the WordPress.com blogging platform, you won’t actually have an individual website address like example.co.uk.
But rather it would be something along the lines of myblog.wordpress.com.
While this can be a good option for those looking to make a website for free. It is not a professional look, especially if you want to create a smack business website or blog.
Also, another downside to creating a free site, you have a lot less control with such things as plugins, themes, SEO, speed and so on as this is all built into the platform.
On the other hand, if you want a professional website that people will love to visit. Then having your own domain name connected to WordPress is a great option.
Also by choosing your own web host, you are then able to scale your downside your website to your desired size deepening on the storage and bandwidth that you choose.
Fortunately, web hosting is quite cheap for WordPress websites which makes it a viable option, even for those on a tight budget.
Is Shared Web Hosting Any Good For WordPress?
When first starting out looking for a top WordPress hosting provider, many come across this concept of “shared web hosting”. But is this so-called shared web hosting good for a website and does it provide good speeds and reliability?
Before I get into the pros and cons of shared web hosting, I’ll first cover what it is.
In essence, shared web hosting is where you are sharing server space (servers are essential big computer hard drives), with hundreds of thousands of other customers.
By sharing with thousands of other customers. We as website makers are able to host our websites for incredibly cheap prices. This concept is also known as economies of scale. Which means the more people use a certain product or service, the cheaper the operating costs are.
But for those who are aware of the concept of the tragedy of the commons. You’ll then be aware that the more people use something, the more it can disintegrate and get abused.
However, when it comes to WordPress hosting providers, they have many systems in place where the prevent the abuse of their systems. Say for example is using too many server resources, then their bandwidth will get restricted so it doesn’t slow down other people’s websites.
While shared web hosting isn’t a perfect option, it is by far the easiest, cheapest and most value-packed option of those starting a WordPress website.
Final Thoughts On The Best WordPress Hosting UK Picks
Ok, guys, that wraps it up! Hopefully, this list of the best WordPress web hosting UK picks has given you some value on finding the right WordPress host for your needs and budget.
For myself personally, I use and recommend BlueHost, which this website is actually hosted on. BlueHost is also the top-recommended host by WordPress. So if you are after a good starting point, BlueHost is a great pick.
If there’s anything that I have missed out on, please let me know down below and ill be happy to address any questions or queries. Thanks for reading!