Sole Searching: Finding the UK's Largest and Smallest Feet

October 04, 2024

Gathering and analysing 2024 sales data from over half a million shoe sales, including styles such as trainers, wellies and boots, from 68 cities across the UK, shoezone – affordable footwear retailer - has found which cities are home to the largest and smallest feet.

Across the UK, men tend to average a size 9 shoe while the average woman wears a size 6. But shoezone has identified the areas of the UK where men and women fall outside these averages…

The UK's shoe size spectrum at a glance…

• Dundee is home to the UK’s smallest feet. Nearly a third of men's and women’s shoe sales were for each gender’s respective smallest sizes.
• Also in Scotland, Glasgow’s smaller shoe sizes make up just over a quarter of both men’s and women’s sales.
• Men and women have bigger shoes to fill in Lichfield as over a quarter of women’s sales are for the larger sizes 8 and 9, while nearly a sixth of men’s are in sizes 12/13.
• Along with Lichfield, the cities of Southend-on-Sea and Lincoln also make it into the UK’s top ten for both men’s and women’s larger shoe size sales.
• Northern Ireland fulfils gender stereotypes with Armagh ranking first in the UK for the city with the largest men’s shoe sizes. Meanwhile, Belfast and Newry rank third and seventh, respectively, for women with the smallest feet.
• Wales also fulfils these gender stereotypes as Newport ranks seventh in the UK for men with the largest feet and Bangor ranks eighth for women with the smallest feet in the UK.

Where are the UK’s tiny toes?

Where do men with the UK’s smallest feet (sizes 6 & 7) live?

Scotland

• Dundee is home to men with the smallest feet in the UK. Men’s smaller shoe sizes of 6/7 made up almost a third of sales – triple that of the city’s larger sizes 12 and 13.
• Ranking third in the UK, a quarter of men’s shoe sales in Glasgow were for the smaller sizes 6 and 7 – nearly four times higher than the sale of sizes 12/13 in the city.

England

• Hull places second in the UK with over a quarter of men's shoe sales in a size 6 or 7, while less than a tenth of sales are for the larger sizes 12 and 13.
• In both Manchester and London, a quarter of men are wearing smaller shoe sizes while only a tenth of sales in each city are for a size 12/13.

Where do women with the UK’s smallest feet (sizes 3 & 4) live?

Scotland

Over half of the cities in the UK’s top ten for women’s smallest shoe size sales are in Scotland.

• Dundee is home to women with the smallest feet in the UK. The city ranks first for the most size 3 sales, making up 11.41% of women’s shoe sales; this rises to 28% of sales when combined with size 4.
• Glasgow isn’t far behind with over a quarter of shoe sales for the smallest sizes 3 and 4.
• Smaller women’s shoes make up almost a quarter of shoe sales in Inverness and Dunfermline.
• In Stirling and Aberdeen, just over one in five sales of women’s shoes are for sizes 3/4.

Northern Ireland

• Belfast places first for the most size 4 shoe sales and third for size 3. Together these sizes make up over a quarter (27.35%) of women’s shoe sales in the capital – ranking it third in the UK.
• Nearly a quarter of women’s shoe sales in Newry are size 3 or 4.
• Lisburn ranks fourth for the number of size 3 shoe sales in the UK and second in Northern Ireland – accounting for a tenth of women’s shoe sales.

England

• Bradford is the only city in England to rank within the UK’s top 10 for women with the smallest feet. Nearly a quarter of shoe sales were in a size 3 or 4.

Wales

• Bangor ranks eighth in the UK for the city with women’s smallest feet, as 23% of purchases were for sizes 3 and 4.
• Swansea sells the most size 3 women’s shoes in Wales, with size 3 and 4 making up a fifth of shoe sales in the city.

Where are the UK's big foots?

Where do mens with the UK’s largest feet (sizes 12 & 13) live?

Northern Ireland

• A sixth of men's shoe sales in Armagh are a size 12 or 13 – over double that of Belfast’s (7.75%) which has the least sales of sizes 12 and 13 in Northern Ireland.

England

• South East England is the region that appears most in the top ten cities for mens shoe sales of size 12 and 13, with Winchester ranking second in the UK (14.65%), Oxford in sixth (13.29%) and Southampton placing eighth (12.59%).
• Two cities in the East of England also make it into the UK’s top ten for men’s larger foot sizes. Southend-on-Sea ranks third in the UK, with nearly one in seven men shopping for larger soles. Peterborough ranks tenth, with one in eight men’s shoe sales in the city being a size 12/13.

Wales

• Newport ranks seventh in the UK for the city with men’s largest shoe sizes, as one in eight sales are for sizes 12 or 13.
• One in nine men in Cardiff also purchase larger sizes.
• Comparatively, just 8% of men’s shoe sales in Bangor are for larger sizes – with less than two in a hundred sales for a size 13.

Where do women with the UK's largest feet (sizes 8 & 9) live?

It's safe to say English women have the largest feet in the UK, with England being the only nation that appears in the top ten. In fact, of the top 30 cities in the UK, Armagh in Northern Ireland is the only one to rank outside of England.

• Women from Lichfield have the biggest feet on average, with over a quarter of sales made up of the largest shoe sizes. The city also ranks number one for size 8 sales, making up almost 1 in 5 women’s shoe sales.
• Two cities in South East England make it into the top 5 for women’s largest shoe sizes. Chichester ranked second and Milton Keynes placed fifth, as almost a quarter of women’s shoe sales in these cities are for sizes 8 or 9.
• In fact, women in Chichester have the largest feet with 1 in 10 (10.12%) sales being for a size 9.
• In the capital, nearly one in ten (9.6%) female Londoners shop for a size 9.

While most men don a size 9 and women a size 6, shoezone has found outliers across the UK. Dundee, Scotland, is home to the UK’s smallest feet for both men and women. With bigger boots to fill, women in Lichfield (along with most English women) and men in Northern Ireland’s Armagh claim the title of the UK’s largest feet. These regional variations highlight that, when it comes to foot size, the UK is truly a nation of diverse footprints.

Alongside adult footwear, shoezone also sells kids shoes – shop our full range of girls trainers, boys trainers, kids wellies, and more.

Methodology

591,557 shoe sales from shoezone’s internal sales data from stores in 68 UK cities was analysed to identify the cities and regions with the smallest and largest shoe sizes. Rankings were calculated based on the percentage of size sales per city.

‘Larger’ sizes are determined as shoezone’s two biggest sizes in each gender’s shoe range. Men’s ‘large’ shoe sizes were deemed as size 12 and 13 and larger sizes for women were 8 and 9.

'Smaller’ sizes are determined as shoezone’s two smallest sizes in each gender’s shoe range. Men’s ‘small’ shoe sizes were deemed as size 6 and 7 and smaller sizes for women were 3 and 4

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