A UK residential proxy gives you an address from a British internet provider, so UK sites treat your requests as a visit from the United Kingdom. Use it for jobs that need a British view: prices and stock on UK stores, local search results, and checks in one city.
Free UK proxies are no substitute. On October 22, 2026, 30 of the 31 working ones on our free list were already flagged as proxies, and only one ran on a big British home network. Our residential proxies target the UK from $0.50/GB for one GB.
Which networks does a UK residential address come from?
A residential address belongs to the provider that connects the home. RIPEstat, the RIPE NCC's routing database, shows how many IPv4 addresses each British provider announces to the internet:
Those totals include business and mobile lines, so not every address is residential. British homes are also moving to full fiber fast. Ofcom, the UK regulator, reported that 22.5 million homes, 74%, could get full fiber in January 2025, and full-fiber connections grew by 1.5 million to 9.0 million in six months.
About 54% of UK users can also use IPv6, the newer address system, APNIC Labs measured in the 30 days to October 19, 2026.
What does a UK address change?
Sites read your address to decide where you are. Google's help page says "IP addresses are roughly based on geography", and your location "helps to show you nearby results". An address in another country shows you that country's version of a page.
A UK address makes these jobs possible:
- Price and stock checks. See the prices, offers and stock that stores show to shoppers in the UK.
- Search results. Track rankings and local results as a British user sees them.
- City checks. See what a site shows in one city, with Residential Premium.
- Ad checks. Confirm that a UK campaign shows in the UK, and how.
Residential Lite targets the country at the lowest rate. Residential Premium adds state, city and ISP targeting.
What does a UK proxy not do?
A proxy changes your address and nothing else. A site that forbids proxies forbids this one as well, and its rules apply to your work. Detection services also list residential proxies: MaxMind's Anonymous IP database has a flag for them. Our guide to how websites detect proxies explains the other checks.
Why do free UK proxies fail?
Our collector reads the free proxy lists published online. Since May 13, 2026, we have seen 13,337 UK addresses on those lists, and only 1,864 ever worked. On October 22, 31 were working:
A free proxy is fine for testing your code. Our free proxy list for the UK shows the working ones, and our page on UK proxies covers the paid options.
How much traffic does a UK job need?
Size it from the pages you load. HTTP Archive's Web Almanac 2024 measured the median desktop page at 2,652 KB and the median mobile page at 2,311 KB. One GB therefore covers roughly 380 full desktop page loads.
A job that skips images and scripts needs far less. Load twenty typical pages through the proxy, read the traffic it used in the dashboard, and multiply.
How do you buy it here?
- Top up your balance. Pay by card from $10, or with crypto from $3. The balance never expires.
- Pick the pool. Residential Lite targets the UK as a country from $0.50/GB for one GB, falling to $0.44 per GB at volume. Residential Premium adds state, city and ISP targeting from $1.00/GB.
- Set the session. Rotate the address on every request for data collection, or hold one address with a sticky session of 3 minutes to 24 hours on Premium.
Which one should you buy?
For most UK jobs, buy Residential Lite with the UK as the country. Free UK proxies lose: almost all are flagged, and only one came from a big British home network. Choose Premium when the job needs a city or a provider. Our residential proxies page has the full price list.
What this page could not check
- We tested no speed, success rate or block rate, on any network, ours included.
- We do not publish which UK networks our own exits come from, or how many there are.
- Announced address space includes business and mobile lines, and is not a count of homes.
- Ofcom's figures were read through a search engine, because its site refused our readers.
- The free proxy figures come from one day and one IP reputation check, and 31 proxies is a small sample.
- We will check every number on this page again by January 22, 2027.
Sources
- RIPE NCC, RIPEstat routing-status and as-overview data, read October 22, 2026.
- Ofcom, Connected Nations update, Spring 2025.
- APNIC Labs, IPv6 use per country, data to October 19, 2026.
- Google Search Help, "Understand and manage your location when you search on Google", read October 22, 2026.
- HTTP Archive, Web Almanac 2024, Page Weight chapter, December 30, 2024.
- MaxMind, GeoIP Anonymous IP database documentation, read October 22, 2026.
- HProxy, residential pricing page, ISP proxies page and payment options page, read October 22, 2026.
- HProxy, free proxy measurement for the United Kingdom, October 22, 2026.
