Apparently we have a lot of time on our hands here at EliteSingles, because one rainy December morn last week we decided that, because over 87% percent of our members hold a Bachelors degree or higher, we would study over 250,000 of our users to see if we could deduce which are the most intelligent towns and/or cities in the UK. Hooray!
And lo! We have charted and correlated and ground through stacked sheets of blindingly hard mathematics in order to present to you the definitive answer to the question that literally everybody everywhere is asking: where in fair old Albion will you find the highest concentration of bulging craniums?
How did we arrive at our answer? Well, when a new user registers with EliteSingles, they fill in a detailed questionnaire on their personality, in order to accurately match them with members with similar personalities. Members give their answers on a scale of 1 to 7. For our intelligence survey we have plucked out the following:
How would you rate your level of intelligence?
Would your friends describe you as wise?
Do you enjoy intellectual discussion?
Do you try to keep well-informed about the world?
And finally:
What is your highest education level?
And so, we have looked at the average answer of these questions across the United Kingdom, and have found the top ten towns for each of the above criteria. Before we reveal the overall victor (and a lovely map shaded in resplendent ‘EliteSingles’ green), let’s take a look at the individual category winners.
The Most Intelligent Singles in the UK
- Guildford
- Cambridge
- Oxford
- Tunbridge Wells
- Hove/Brighton
- Edinburgh
- Canterbury
- Bath
- York
- Cheltenham
And there you have it, folks. The most intelligent town in the UK shall be crowned, incontestably, irrevocably, eternally: Guildford. Guildfordians, give yourself a pat on your breathtakingly intelligent backs.
Next up, we have:
The Wisest Singles in the UK
- Guildford
- Tunbridge Wells
- Hove
- Cambridge
- Oxford
- Richmond
- York
- Maidenhead
- Macclesfield
- Edinburgh
Guildford again, thus far pulling away in the cleverness Olympics. Not only have Guildford’s singles placed themselves highest on the smart-o-meter, they are also the wisest folk in the country; a populace so wise they make Socrates look like a shirtless football hooligan. Wise singles of Guildford, we doff our cap to thee.
The Most Singles Fond of ‘Intellectual Discussion’
- London
- Cambridge
- Brighton
- Oxford
- Edinburgh
- Wolverhampton
- Bournemouth
- Birmingham
- Norwich
- Belfast
Single folks, are you bored to tears of blind dates lurching from one awkward silence to the next, garnished with only the briefest discussion of current cinema, lightly seasoned with weather talk? No longer! If you’re looking for singles with rapiers wits, lofty ideas, and anecdotes so boisterous that they would cause Oscar Wilde to spontaneously combust with envy, the nation’s capital is where it’s at.
The Most Well-informed Singles
- Richmond
- Maidenhead
- Kingston upon Thames
- London
- Leamington spa
- Cambridge
- Macclesfield
- Wembley
- Altrincham
- Guildford
It’s all very well enjoying a good spot of intellectual discussion, but if your philosophy is primarily drawn from a well-thumbed copy of Paris Hilton’s magnum opus ‘Confessions of an Heiress’, you may not be contributing as much to the discussion as you think. However, if you’re looking to make eyes across the bar at some of the most well-informed, finger-on-the-pulse singles in the country, head on down to Richmond.
The Highest Educated Singles
- Kingston upon Thames
- Cambridge
- Richmond
- London
- Oxford
- Edinburgh
- Guildford
- Bath
- Hove
- Wembley
And now, because a ‘well informed intellectual discussion’ could be about moss or Pokémon or chicken nuggets if all parties were suitably enthused, we present the results of the least arbitrary of the various questions posed to our singles. Kingston upon Thames, just south of London, emerges the victor in this instance, followed by many of the usual suspects, all well known for their roving herds of diploma-wielding brainiacs.
Now, a drum roll please, in preparation for the big reveal. If you have a drum to hand, you may thwack it presently. If not, feel free to use your desk/knees/the gleaming bald head of your mate Dave. Ready?
The Altogether Brainiest Singles in the United Kingdom: Top 20 Towns and Cities
- Cambridge
- Oxford
- London
- Guildford
- Tunbridge Wells
- Edinburgh
- Maidenhead
- Brighton
- Macclesfield
- Leamington
- Bath
- Wolverhampton
- Bournemouth
- Canterbury
- Birmingham
- Norwich
- Altrincham
- York
- Belfast
- Cheltenham
The gigantic single brains of Cambridge take the gaudy and entirely fictional Smartest Singles in the United Kingdom Crown! What with Cambridge and Oxford taking the top two places and also being the cities in which two of the most prestigious universities on the planet reside, this results table may not be completely surprising.
However, while the top twenty cities housing the smartest singles in the UK may not have you gasping in shock, the reasonable correlation between our study and the country’s finest universities does seem to suggest that, through our convoluted methods, we have arrived at a conclusion that is pretty darn accurate.
So, as Cambridge gallivants off into the sunset swinging the Smartest Singles trophy around its head, we must ask: what can we gain from this great intellectual tournament? Well, if you’re single, primed to mingle, and hankering for a good cranial scorching, the whole country is your oyster. All that’s left to do is hop on the train in the name of love, and head to Cambridge, or Guildford, Edinburgh or York, Belfast, Brighton, or sunny old Wolverhampton.
About the author: Dan Hackett
Dan is an editor for EliteSingles.