“I cannae believe it!” Brits vote Scottish accent the most attractive 

Over half of Brits say a salesperson’s accent affects whether they’ll speak to them 

Brits’ most and least attractive regional accents have been ranked in a recent survey to 2,000 Brits by TollFreeForwarding, with Queen’s English coming in second with 13% of the votes followed by the Geordie accent (13%). 

 The top five most attractive UK accents are: 

1.     Scottish – 15% 

2.     Queen’s English – 13% 

3.     Geordie – 13%  

4.     Northern Irish – 11% 

5.       Welsh – 10% 

The survey also found which accents that Brits believe to be least inviting, with Mancunian, Brummie, and East Anglian with the lowest votes. The five least attractive UK accents include: 

1.     Mancunian – 2% 

2.     Brummie – 2% 

3.     East Anglian – 2% 

4.     Cockney – 3% 

5.       Scouse – 3% 

People also said that a salesperson’s accent affects whether they will speak with them on the phone, with 57% of Brits saying they are more likely to speak to a salesperson with their preferred accent.  

This is due to stereotypical associations of certain accents with a person’s status or competence, explained business psychologist Kim Stephenson, such as Queen’s English being associated with a higher status than other regional dialects. 

Professor Ze Wang at the University of Central Florida said, “Accents can trigger social categorisation in a prompt, automatic, and occasionally unconscious manner,” meaning people may not even realise their biases against certain accents.  

These unconscious biases can unfairly affect certain professions, like sales, which require good first impressions, explained sales director Ryan O’Hara. “The metric that we typically look for in an inside sales team is talk time. We’ve found that the higher an agent’s talk time, the greater the likelihood they met or exceeded a quota.” Therefore, a salesperson’s accent could put them at an immediate disadvantage if it doesn’t align with the preferences of the person to whom they are speaking.  

More information on the survey can be found on TollFreeForwarding.com.