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5 Best UK Stock Brokers List for 2023

By Stefano Treviso, Updated on: Aug 21 2023.

As a stock trader or investor it can get very complicated to choose the right broker according to your needs as the market is flooded with choices and all of them seem to claim to be the best.

Here are our 5 best UK Stock brokers for the year 2023:

Broker Reason
eToro Best for social and copy trading
Capital.com Beginner friendly web and mobile platforms (no commissions)
Trading 212 Best mobile app with largest stock variety (no commissions)
CMC Markets  Best web trading platform for professionals
Saxo Bank Largest asset offering with strongest regulatory framework

Some brokers are great for short term speculators, others for long term investors and others are great for beginners. To save your time, we decided to evaluate our brokers database and choose what we thought to be the best value proposition in each one of them so you’re able to select what suits your needs.

A very important point to note is that all the brokers considered for this ranking are regulated and licensed by the FCA (the UK’s financial regulator). Which means that regardless of any of them being global brands, they hold an active and valid license in the UK.

Each one of them was carefully analysed using our proprietary methodology.

1. eToro -  Best for social and copy trading

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74% of retail CFD accounts lose money.

eToro is an international broker specialised in social and copy trading that offers real stocks and cryptocurrencies along with CFDs on several asset classes.

Key data
Stocks (Real and CFDs)4000
Commissions

No commissions on real stocks and ETFs

Minimum DepositFrom $50 to $200
Financial RegulatorsCySec, FCA, ASIC, FSAS.
MT4No
MT5No
cTraderNo
TradingViewNo
Proprietary PlatformYes

eToro saw a huge gap in the financial markets and decided to bet on it. There were a lot of newbies looking to get started on trading / investing yet they lacked the time and dedication to learn the craft. That’s when eToro decided to build a multilingual platform with social and copy trading capabilities. Basically a fusion of facebook and a trading platform where traders and followers can interact in several languages and profit from a joint venture.

The GoodThe Bad
  • Social and Copy trading capabilities
  • Trading real shares and cryptocurrencies
  • Copy Trading statistics are not clear enough
  • Lack of advanced order placement controls

In conclusion:

  • If you are interested in investing / trading yet you lack the time, dedication or skills to do it yourself, eToro is definitely a great option for you.
  • If you are a professional trader looking to monetise your skills with an extra income (besides from trading) then eToro will allow you to put your abilities to use by gaining a following from which you’ll receive a nice benefit.

2. Capital.com - Beginner friendly web and mobile platforms (no commissions)

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83.45% of retail CFD accounts lose money.

Capital.com is a global broker founded in 2016 that specialises in CFDs trading with an offering of more than 4,000 different assets along with several trading platforms (TradingView, MT4, MT5 and their own).

Key data
Stocks (Real and CFDs)4800
CommissionsNone
Minimum Deposit$20
Financial RegulatorsCySec, FCA, ASIC, NBRB.
MT4Yes
MT5No
cTraderNo
TradingViewYes
Proprietary PlatformYes

Capital.com provides one of the most simple and friendliest to use professional trading platforms out there. The clear separation between them and most of their competitors lies in the fact that they still added some of the professional tools required by experts yet they packed them on a simple interface along with 3,800+ stock CFDs and 1,000+ real stocks for both traders or investors to choose from.

The GoodThe Bad
  • Beginner friendly platforms
  • Customisable or removable leverage (Not available in Australia)
  • Integration with TradingView
  • Lack of advanced research and analysis tools
  • No multi-charting capabilities on their propietary web platform
  • Trailing-stop order not available

Capital.com definitely serves as a great overall choice for stock investors & traders that also look to explore different asset classes at the same time while using a single brokerage account. Pretty much everything they provide is extremely competitive when compared to similar brokers.

3. Trading 212 - Best mobile app with largest stock variety (no commissions)

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Majority of retail CFD accounts lose money.

Trading 212 is a global broker headquartered in the U.K specialising in real stocks and ETFs investing along with CFD trading.

Key data
Stocks (Real and CFDs)11526
CommissionsNone
Minimum DepositFrom $1 to $10
Financial RegulatorsFCA, CySec, FSC.
MT4No
MT5No
cTraderNo
TradingViewNo
Proprietary PlatformYes

Trading 212’s main advantages are definitely providing over 10,000 different real stocks for customers to invest in fractionally, which means that you can purchase even as little as 1£ worth of any share using their extremely simple and friendly platform.

The GoodThe Bad
  • Broad asset offering in their investing account (more than 10,000 assets)
  • Friendly, smooth and simple proprietary platforms (both web and mobile)
  • Great spreads on stocks and no commissions on investing accounts
  • Despite both platforms being beautiful, they are gamified for engagement. Clicking on the buy button on mobile platform will trigger a random order without asking for confirmation
  • Asides from stocks, their asset offering lacks variety
  • Very high forex spreads (1.4 Pips on EUR/USD)

Trading 212 is a great choice for investors and traders looking for a great stock variety along with a simple platform, fractional share trading and a low minimum deposit. If you’re looking to handle your own investments and to do so using a simple platform with a comprehensive asset offering, Trading 212 is definitely a great choice. 

4. CMC Markets - Best web trading platform for professionals

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78% of retail CFD accounts lose money.

CMC Markets is a global broker headquartered in the U.K that holds 6 high value financial licenses and offers CFD trading on stocks, etfs, commodities, currencies, bonds and cryptocurrencies.

Key data
Stocks (Real and CFDs)10169
Commissions

Yes and they vary per share exchange location. For U.S shares, there is a minimum $10 in-and-out commission. 

Minimum Deposit0
Financial RegulatorsASIC, FCA, IIROC, MAS, BaFin.
MT4Yes
MT5No
cTraderNo
TradingViewNo
Proprietary PlatformYes

CMC Markets crafted unique platforms for both mobile and web packed with professional features for experienced traders. Whether it is connecting to an exchange in China to get the stocks data feed that you need or creating custom workspaces, they’ve got you covered.

The GoodThe Bad
  • Comprehensive asset offering with more than 12,000+ tradable assets and the possibility to add data connections to exchanges to add more
  • Powerful professional platform with customisable layouts and integrated reuters feed
  • High commissions on stocks and ETFs
  • Platform is not beginner friendly

CMC Markets is a great choice for high volume stock traders which will offset the cost of their commissions by trading in large quantities with true market spreads, but when it comes to the average person they can definitely be a very expensive choice.

5. Saxo Bank - Largest asset offering with strongest regulatory framework

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69% of retail CFD accounts lose money.

Saxo Bank is a Danish investment bank operating since 1992. It is one of the most regulated brokerages in the world with an exceptional selection of financial instruments.

Key data
Stocks (Real and CFDs)30000
Commissions

$0.02/share (min $10) for US Stocks, from 0.10% (min €10) for other equity markets, €4 per futures contract.

Minimum DepositFrom $500 up to $2,000
Financial RegulatorsASIC, HKMA, ADGM, FINMA, MAS, FFAJ, AFM.
MT4No
MT5No
cTraderNo
TradingViewYes
Proprietary PlatformYes

Saxo Bank is definitely the choice for high net worth traders looking for extreme reliability when it comes to a regulatory framework as they coin on 7 top tier financial licenses to back them align with 50,000+ financial instruments from all over the world.

The GoodThe Bad
  • Exceptional selection of financial instruments at one place
  • 2 highly-customizable proprietary trading platforms
  • API integration for 3rd party services like Excel or TradingView
  • High minimum deposit for certain countries
  • Withdrawals via bank transfer only
  • High fees on options and futures

If you’re a high net worth investor and you’re looking for the most reliable choice when it comes to protecting your funds then Saxo Bank is definitely a great choice to consider as you won’t fall short on stock choices to invest in.