Study reveals the UK's least trustworthy accent

Updated on February 4, 2021 at 11:02 AM

Does your neighbour sound a little dodgy? There may be a reason. A survey has found the UK’s least trustworthy accents, with surprising results.

Study reveals the UK's least trustworthy accent

Whether you’re from London or Manchester, Wales or West Midlands, your accent is likely to be very different to your mate from the next town over. But out of all of the UK’s varyingly comprehensible accents, which do we trust the most?

Discover our latest podcast

UK Based online marketplace OnBuy has conducted a survey of over 2,000 people to decide which UK accent is perceived to be the most trustworthy...and it doesn’t look good for Birmingham.

The least trustworthy accent

Out of the whole study, only 4% of people surveyed thought that the Brummie accent sounded trustworthy… Looks like we have Peaky Blinders to thank for that.

Next up on the list for this very subjective study is the scouse accent. Only 8% of participants voted the scouse accent as a trustworthy one and we bet those people were from Liverpool.

On the other end of the scale of the most trustworthy accents, Edinburgh came in third with a scoring of 52% (although why, we have no idea).

Second in the trustworthiness survey was the Received Pronunciation (RP) better known as Oxford English or ‘the Queen’s English’ with 57% people voting the accent as trustworthy.

Finally, the most trustworthy accent in the UK as deemed by the authority of one website and 2,000 people is the Yorkshire accent… probably because of how delightful it sounds.

Of course, it goes without saying that the survey did not assess the actual trustworthiness of each accent but instead sought to highlight how personal bias may affect our perceptions of accents across the UK.

A spokesperson for OnBuy.com stated:

The UK is known for its rich array of regional accents and dialects. But does the way someone sounds have any correlation with our snap judgments towards them in the workplace and social settings?

It seems the answer to that question is a resounding yes. But, if you’re looking to know how well your accent holds up in the eyes of your peers then check the list below.