Phone numbers in the United Kingdom (+44)

Dialling and writing numbers in the United Kingdom

The trunk prefix is dialled in front of a number inside the country and dropped after the calling code; the international prefix is dialled to call out of it. The lengths and the leading digits below say which numbers the plan accepts and what their first digits tell you about the line type.

Lengths count the national significant number, the digits after the calling code, without the trunk prefix. Every value is read from libphonenumber’s metadata, release 9.0.41, which a lookup runs on.

One number in each of its written forms

The number is fictional: Ofcom reserves 07700 900xxx for drama.

The numbering plan for the United Kingdom

Every phone lookup starts from the numbering metadata: it settles whether a number is valid for the United Kingdom, how it is written nationally and internationally, and which line type its range belongs to. The example numbers below are libphonenumber’s examples of each line type’s format; one may be in service, so read them for their shape and never dial or text one as a test.

+44 is shared with Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey, so the region of a number is settled by its area code, not by the calling code alone.

The regulator table behind a lookup here

Ofcom numbering data (synced 2026-10-15, table version 2026-10-15). The table is partial: the regulator publishes only part of its plan in machine-readable form, so absence from it says nothing about a number and block_status stays null outside it. A lookup names the block holder as carrier with carrier_source block_allocation — the original allocation, never who serves the number today.

• 343,436 blocks in the table: 124,626 allocated, 218,810 unassigned, 0 reserved.
• 36.3 % of the blocks are allocated.
• 100.0 % of allocated blocks name a holder.
• 3.3 % of allocated blocks settle the line type on their own (474 mobile, 3,587 VoIP).

Measured weekly (last on 2026-10-25) from the table itself. These are shares of the regulator’s own table, not of real traffic, and they say nothing about who serves any one number today.

Who publishes the table, its files and terms, and what the copy installed here holds are on its data source page.

Network carriers by numbers allocated

Spaw groups the holders in the Ofcom numbering data under network brands. Each carrier’s page counts the numbers its legal entities were allocated, as a share of the regulator’s table: original allocation, not who serves a number today, and not a share of subscribers or traffic.

• VodafoneThree22.7%
• Virgin Media O216.0%
• EE13.2%
• BT11.2%
• TalkTalk1.3%
• Sky0.7%

Every brand in the tables Spaw groups is on the network carriers index.

UK 07 numbers by original range holder

Of the 551.5 million numbers Ofcom’s table lists as allocated in the UK’s mobile ranges (071, 073, 074, 075, 077, 078 and 079), 38.0% were allocated to VodafoneThree’s companies, 28.9% to Virgin Media O2’s companies and 27.5% to EE’s companies; 66 other holders hold the remaining 5.6% (Ofcom numbering data, published 2026-10-25).

A range holder is the provider Ofcom lists for the block. A number ported to another network keeps its range, so the holder is who the range was allocated to, not the network a number is on today. Shares are of Ofcom’s table, not of subscribers or traffic. Brands group the legal entities Ofcom lists under the network brand they trade as today (Spaw’s brand map of 2026-09-24); every holder outside the columns below is counted as another holder.

millions of allocated numbers · a block of five digits after the 0 (07412 3) covers 100,000 numbers

• 070: 43.1 million numbers allocated to 78 holders. The numbering plan types them as personal numbers, which forward calls to another number: they look like mobile numbers and are not.
• 076: 12.5 million numbers allocated to 16 holders. The numbering plan types them as pager numbers, except 07624, the Isle of Man’s mobile numbers.
• Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man dial +44 and their ranges sit in Ofcom’s table; the plan places these 07 prefixes there: Guernsey 07781, 07839 (1.4 million); the Isle of Man 07624 (0.8 million); Jersey 07509, 07797, 07829, 07937 (2.4 million).
• The numbering plan types every 07 number by its range, whoever holds it; the measured figures above count only the blocks whose holder’s name also says mobile or VoIP.

Source: Ofcom numbering data (Ofcom copyright), counted by Spaw from the table Ofcom published on 2026-10-25; the files, their terms and what the installed copy holds are on its data source page. To see who a single number’s range was allocated to, run it through the free phone number lookup.

What a lookup answers for a number here

Every number the plan accepts for the United Kingdom comes back with its formats, its line_type and line_type_source, its region and timezones, and the is_fictional and is_disposable flags from the bundled fiction ranges and the synced list of SMS-receiving numbers. Because the Ofcom numbering data covers the United Kingdom, a lookup also answers carrier from the block holder and block_status where the partial table has the block.

Europe/London: the whole country keeps one clock, so a lookup answers that zone for every number here.

Area codes and number ranges in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has 611 area-code pages and 21 pages for non-geographic ranges (mobile, freephone, special-rate); each reads the same table for the blocks under its prefix, their original holders and the line types they settle. Written here with the trunk 0 dialled inside the United Kingdom; from abroad the 0 is dropped after +44.

code · place its page names · blocks allocated in the Ofcom numbering data (original allocation, not who serves a number today)

Run the lookup

The plan’s own example number, answered with every field:

curl https://spaw.co/api/v1/phone \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_…" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"phone": "+44 7400 123456", "country": "GB"}'

Or try one without a key on the free phone number lookup, and read every field in the phone intelligence guide.

Other regions

• Micronesia
• Faroe Islands
• France
• Gabon
• Grenada
• Georgia
• French Guiana
• Guernsey
• Every region