How to Start Trading as a Beginner in the UK

If you are a beginner looking to start trading in the UK, there are some things you need to know… How to find a broker, what are the best platforms and what can you trade, are just a few. This article breaks it all down.

John Michaels

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Published: June 2, 2026

Edited by

James Warwick

If you want to learn how to start trading in the UK, whether that’s trading stocks, forex, commodities you just aren’t sure yet, then there are a couple of things you need to know before you get started.

In this article, we will break down the terminology, brokers, trading platforms – and yes there is a difference between a broker and a trading platform – to give you what you need to get started.

If you are more of a video fan, and simply can’t bear the thought of reading, then we’ve created a very useful ‘How to Get Started‘ video on Youtube – you can even watch it at 2x speed, if you’d like. Check it out below.

This article is intended for entertainment and educational purposes only. It does not contain and is not intended to be construed as financial advice. If you have questions related to your financial situation and whether trading is right for you, please consult a finance professional in the UK. For more information, please see our risk disclaimer at the end of the article.

What is the difference between a broker and a platform?

Summary: A broker is who executes your trades, they set the price, cost of trading and what you can trade. A trading platform where you place the trade. For example, I can place a trade through Tradingview, my platform, with my broker, IG. Now if i placed that trade with Pepperstone or CMC i may get charged differently, or in some cases, my broker might not even offer me the option to trade that instrument.

1. What you need to consider when choosing a broker?

The key things to look out for in a broker are:

Regulation: In the UK you’ll need the broker to be FCA-regulated, luckily that’s what we do on Trading Brokers, we only review FCA-regulated brokers.
Spreads: Spreads are the way you get charged, a wide spread means that you will effectively be charged more, and a tight spread means you will be charged less. There are some really good brokers and you have to know where to look.
Platforms offered: Some brokers offer multiple platforms, like TradingView, MetaTrader (often called MT4 & MT5), and cTrader. Others offer none of these and only have a webtrader experience that they own. Ultimately this will determine where you place your trade – and the UI (user interface) you will be interacting with regularly.
Education: If you are new to trading you’ll need a broker that offers videos, webinars, books and even some market analysis. These are all offered by top-tier brokers, so if you see anything less, then consider your options! The best educational resource we’ve found for beginners is IG Academy, and you can visit them here.

2. How do I know if a broker is FCA-Regulated?

The FCA, very helpfully, provides a consumer-facing firm-checker tool as of 2026, meaning you can quickly type in the name of the organization and check if they are regulated. This is especially important when trading, as ultimately this is potentially money on the line so do your research before you deposit anything!

3. What are the different trading platforms and how are they different?

The main platforms offered are:

Tradingview: They are mainly a charting tool but they offer broker integration as well and have a list of brokers to choose from in the UK. You can integrate with a broker directly from the Tradingview platform as well, as long as you have opened a live account with the broker you choose.
cTrader: This is offered by SpotWare and has a limited UK audience – but it actually allows you to create algorithmic bots called cBots which are excellent once you are ready to take it a step further.
MetaTrader (MT4 & MT5): Some people swear by this as the best platform for traders. It’s seen as the tool for advanced traders. In reality, it’s just a very plain UI that you can take or leave. Some brokers like Axi only offer Metatrader, so that’s how popular it is.
Proprietary platforms: Some notable examples of proprietary platforms are CMC’s Next Generation Platform and XTB’s xStation5. Both are targeted at different audiences, bt both are exceptional at what they do. As a beginner, I’d recommend XTB’s platform and even IG’s native platform.

How do I sign-up for a broker?

If you want to start trading you will need a broker first, then a trading platform. Some people do this the other way around and get confused as to why their broker doesn’t appear on Tradingview, for example. You have to do your research using sites like Trading Brokers and find a broker that suits you.

Here’s the steps we’d recommend if you are just getting started.

1. Open a demo account

Opening a demo account is low-risk, it is simple for beginners to test their strategy (and nerves) when they see profit or loss, and often this is the hardest part of trading – the psychology. All brokers reviewed on this site offer a demo account and often this is also a way to see if you enjoy their native platform or whether you’d actually like to trade on MT4/5 or Trading View, or even something else.

2. Choose a platform

As we mentioned different brokers provide different platforms, IG provides Trading View, but Axi doesn’t, CMC only has MT4, whereas IG has MT5. There are the kinds of nuances that you discover after checking out different platforms. Or you can always head over to our reviews section to see who offers what platform.

3. Trade for 1 week

Trading for a week, either casually or in a more dedicated session will give you some initial understanding of how you get on with the broker and platform, and you can even open more than one demo account to see the spreads and the differences between them that way you are not locked-in when it comes to your final choice.

4. Open a live account with your preferred broker

Once you’ve narrowed your list down to one preferred broker. Open a live account, never risk more than you can afford to lose(!), and start trading. You should probably still look at the education offered, and learn more as you go. Your first trades should be tiny, and I mean the smallest possible trades of your trading career, because undoubtedly most traders lose money. You’ve seen the stats and probably think that won’t be you, but the stats don’t lie.

How do I find a good broker for me?

Trading Brokers provides a ‘Match a Broker‘ tool for traders to find a broker suited for them, based on fees, customer support times, spreads and platforms offered. This is the most comprehensive tool in the UK for traders to find brokers. If you want to find a broker manually here are your options.

Determine what kind of trader you are.

You need to determine what kind of trader you are and what you like to trade. The reason for this is that different brokers excel at different things. For example, IG is a great all-round broker, with 16,000+ instruments to trade in 2026, but their spreads are wider on the standard account than a Pepperstone Razor account and even CMC’s standard account. so is your priority trading more things, or is it the cost of trading? Here are some more variables to consider:

What will you trade: Some brokers have really tight spreads on Forex pairs like Pepperstone, and others offer a huge range of stocks like IG.
What timeframe do you prefer: Do you trade on the 1m, 5m, 15m charts (called Scalping), or do you trade on 1h or 4h timeframes (more like a Day Trader). These differences matter as your spread costs (the amount you are comfortable being charged to trade) will eat into your profits substantially more if you are looking at scalping. For that we recommend choosing a Pepperstone Razor Account.
What platform do you like: Are you an MT4 fan, or more of a Trading View guy? This matters because the list of available options offered by broker varies.
Customer Service & Education: Are you new to trading and need more support? Or are you going pro and need a hands-off approach. These are critical decisions.

Other factors include mobile-first trading, spread costs, and general user experience. But you get the idea. Choosing the perfect broker for you is a difficult ask manually, that’s why we created the Match a Broker tool in the first place.

What can I expect to make as a beginner trader?

According to Glassdoor, day traders in the UK make between £34,000 to £83,000 annually with an average of £54,000. This is based on over 3,000+ reviews in 2025. Meaning that whilst day trading is profitable, it is hardly the huge figures reported in the media. As a beginner, I’m going to be real with you, making anything is going to be a struggle. You might start with a few wins, a few losses and roughly break even. If you are not losing money then you are doing better than 70-80% of traders according to latest figures.

FAQs

Here are some commonly asked questions that beginners ask us on our contact us page.

1. What is scalping, day trading and swing trading and how do I know what I am?

Here’s a nice rule of thumb:

If you trade the 1m-15m charts you are a scalper.
If you trade the 1h-4h charts you are either a day trader or swing trader.
If you trade the 4h+ charts you are either a swing trader or position trader.

The terms themselves don’t make much difference as you could be a scalper one day and a swing trader the next, or even on different pairs or stocks. But people like boxes so those are the boxes.

2. Can I open more than one trading account?

Yes, and it’s encouraged. Always open more than one account when you are starting out. That way, you can test the broker execution speeds, spreads (fees) and platform experience. Do not settle for one broker in the beginning. Explore Trading Brokers for FCA-regulated sites and open a demo account with all the brokers you like. If you are looking for live accounts then it makes sense to focus on one broker, but this should only be the case after extensive research and testing.

3. Does my money switch over when I switch brokers?

No, often beginners are confused thinking that this works like a bank account where, if you close it, the money is moved over to the new account. This doesn’t happen in trading – your broker does not transfer the money to the new broker. You will have to withdraw the money yourself, close the account and open the new account with the new broker.

4. How do I create a trading strategy?

Trading strategies are personal. They are not given to you. You have to explore and test and go through a process of trial and error. There are educational guides and people who offer trading strategies for a living, but that’s not a recommended route, you have to explore your own strategy first and be very wary of taking anyone else’s advice.

Final Thoughts

So the question of how to start trading in the UK is as follows:

Determine what FCA-regulated broker you want using Trading Brokers ‘Match a Broker‘ tool.
Open a demo account with several brokers and start practising for 1-2 weeks.
Determine what kind of trader you are in that timeframe: what platforms, timeframes & instruments do you like to perefer?
Open a live account with your preferred broker.
Trade a small risk amount at first.
Experiment and refine your strategy / approach.

Resources for Beginner UK Traders

Here are some useful resources for beginner traders in the UK

Education-related

Risk-related

Broker-related

Resources

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