A WIRRAL area has been revealed as one of the top areas searching for divorce in the UK.

In 2022, it was revealed that Birkenhead was the number one area Googling most about divorce in the UK from September 2019 to 2020.

The findings were collated using Google keyword data, finding the area in the UK where the highest number of people are searching for divorce information. Topping the list was the likes of Birkenhead, Birmingham and Bradford.

Fast-forward two years, the UK’s social and political landscape is once again almost unrecognisable: two new Prime Ministers, social tensions over foreign wars, eco-anxiety, recession and a ravaging cost-of-living crisis have all contributed to the national stress.

With one in five of us experiencing stress every single day, Newcastle family law specialists Beecham Peacock Solicitors wanted to see how this stress was yet again impacting the UK’s love life for their analysis of the latest findings from July 2023 to June 2024.

Key findings:

  • Plymouth is now the UK’s #1 hotspot for divorce.
  • Birkenhead has been demoted, now sitting at the third-highest divorce hotspot.
  • January is the most common month that people search for a divorce.
  • Kingston-Upon-Hull has the highest year-on-year increase for divorce searches.

 

The heartbreak cities:

Using data from Google’s Keyword Planner tool, Beecham Peacock has identified how many people are searching for divorce in each city, using this data to find the cities with the leading number of searches every month for “divorce” per 100,000 people.

  1. Plymouth – 27.77 monthly searches per 100,000 people.
  2. Portsmouth – 26.89 monthly searches per 100,000 people.
  3. Birkenhead – 22.87 monthly searches per 100,000 people.
  4. Leeds – 22.06 monthly searches per 100,000 people
  5. Bradford – 21.11 monthly searches per 100,000 people.
  6. Bristol – 16.25 monthly searches per 100,000 people.
  7. Leicester – 15.4 monthly searches per 100,000 people
  8. Belfast – 13.11 monthly searches per 100,000 people.
  9. Hull – 13.02 monthly searches per 100,000 people.
  10. Birmingham – 11.53 monthly searches per 100,000 people.
  11. London – 11.16 monthly searches per 100,000 people.
  12. Manchester – 9.84 monthly searches per 100,000 people.
  13. Liverpool – 8.09 monthly searches per 100,000 people.
  14. Glasgow – 7.14 monthly searches per 100,000 people
  15. Edinburgh – 3.26 monthly searches per 100,000 people

 

Birkenhead has been dethroned as the #1 UK hotspot for divorce, being succeeded by Plymouth at #1 and Portsmouth at #2 with 27.77 searches per 100k people and 26.89 searches per 100k respectively.

Plymouth saw the largest increase in the top three, with monthly searches for ‘divorce’ increasing by 143% year-on-year since 2023.

Searches in Birkenhead saw a notable 75% increase, after recovering slightly in 2023 with 16.33 searches per 100,000 people.

Searches in Portsmouth increased slightly since the previous year also, rising by 22%.

Lauren Laverick, divorce solicitor at Beecham Peacock, said: “Divorce can be a daunting and incredibly stressful life change.

“We understand taking that first step takes a lot of courage, and the quicker a divorce can be processed, the sooner couples can begin to heal amicably.

“A considerate and understanding approach to divorce proceedings is paramount, so we hope the people of Plymouth are confident that they are being represented with their best interests at heart.”