Liverpool named fastest-talking city in the North and third fastest in the UK

We all know that certain accents can be pretty difficult for outsiders to understand - with Scouse, Brummy, Geordie and Glaswegian often being noted as particularly hard. But, where do people speak the most quickly?

To identify the parts of the UK with the fastest and slowest talkers, Preply found the ten most populated UK cities and analysed the transcripts of videos from local news stations and podcasts to calculate the average words said per minute for each city.

The research identified that, on average, Brits say 189 words per minute and, unsurprisingly, Liverpool was named the fastest talking city in the North. So, which city was the quickest in the UK?

The fastest-talking UK city was revealed as Leicester, with an average speech rate per minute of 255 words, followed by Glasgow with an average of 218 words per minute. In third place was Liverpool, with an average of 210 words per minute and at the bottom was Edinburgh with just 132 words.

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Despite Birmingham often being noted as one of the ‘worst’ British accents, Brummies came in at second to last with an average of 164 words per minute.

The fastest talking UK cities - ranked by average words per minute

1. Leicester (average WPM: 255)
2. Glasgow (average WPM: 218)
3. Liverpool (average WPM: 210)
4. Bristol (average WPM: 195)
5. London (average WPM: 193)
6. Nottingham (average WPM: 181)
7. Sheffield (average WPM: 175)
8. Leeds (average WPM: 174)
9. Birmingham (average WPM: 164)
10. Edinburgh (average WPM: 132)