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5 Of The Best Single Beds and Single Mattresses In The UK 2020 and 2021

A standard single bed size is 90cm wide and 190cm long (that's a 3ft mattress to you, Mum). 

Unsurprisingly single beds and single mattresses are one of the cheapest beds you can buy but the choice and price range is still pretty vast. The cheapest single bed will only cost you about £100 for the mattress and a similar price for a single divan base. Top quality single mattresses cost well over £1000. 

We’ve picked out five of the best single beds and single mattresses that you can buy in the UK as well as some suggested single bedframes and single divan beds to go with them. We’ve avoided the temptation of just naming five luxurious options with Siberian Yak Hair and instead have tried to pick out a good range of prices and types of single bed mattress.

These single beds and single mattresses are all worth considering because they’ve won awards, get outstanding customers reviews or offer a very good specification for the money.

Prices are correct at the time of writing.

1. Nectar Sleep Memory Foam Single Mattress - £449 (medium/firm)

**Nectar Sale: 5 free gifts worth up to £385 + 365 night trial + 20% off bedroom furniture until 25/04/21**
In the last few years there’s a been a huge number of ‘bed in a box’ mattresses appearing from young upstarts with funny names and slick websites. You’ve probably seen adverts for Simba Sleep, Eve Sleep, Emma and others.

The idea is that the mattress is squashed up into a box which you can carry up the stairs without ruining your wallpaper. It can also be delivered more easily than a normal mattress.

Nectar Sleep’s Memory Foam single mattress stands out from the competition by offering an industry-leading guarantee and trial period. You can only buy it online but you get a whole year to try it out and send it back for a refund if it doesn’t feel right. You also get a ‘forever’ guarantee, whereas most similar single beds come with still-generous 10 year guarantees (there are Ts and Cs of course).

For those who haven’t already spent hours sifting through mattress buying guides, I’ll give a quick summary of the technical stuff. The Nectar Sleep single mattress is:
  • memory foam, which is a popular alternative to a more traditional single pocket spring mattress. Some people reckon that memory foam is a more supportive option. Other people don’t like the slight sinking feeling you get with memory foam. It can also make you feel a bit warm, but a modern mattress like this uses ‘breathable’ memory foam to try and get around this (see our memory foam v pocket spring guide for a more waffly comparison)
  • 25cm deep, which is a good sign. Very cheap single mattresses tend to be 15cm or 20cm deep. It also has a nice deep layer of memory foam on top, whereas some cheap single memory foam mattresses have a thin layer of memory foam on top with cheaper materials underneath.
  • medium/firm. Firmness is a funny thing in the mattress industry, since there’s no consistency about what a company means when they say that a mattress is ‘firm’ or ‘soft’. However, you need to get the right level of support for you and there are some general rules which are worth understanding. Firstly, heavier and larger people need a firmer single mattress than lighter and smaller people. Secondly, people who sleep on their side needs a slightly softer single mattress than people who sleep on their back. So, if you’re very light and you sleep on your side, then this single mattress probably isn’t for you.
Woman sitting on Nectar Sleep mattress
This single memory foam mattress from Nectar Sleep has a 365 day trial period...
Nectar single bed frame
...and you can get it with a matching single bed frame (sorry, the photo shows the king size...)
Similar priced single memory foam mattresses include:
  • Emma Mattress (£429, medium) - a single foam mattress which claims to be 'UK's the most awarded mattress in 2019'. Comes with a 200 night trial and a 10 year guarantee. Also known as the Emma Original. The Emma brand scores 4.6/5 on TrustPilot.
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  • Ergoflex 5G (£499, medium/firm) - memory foam mattress with a 30 day trial and a 10 year guarantee. This one stands out because it scores an outstanding 4.7/5 on TrustPilot.
If you want to buy the single bed frame which goes with the Nectar single mattress (pictured) then it'll cost you another £199. Don't feel obliged to buy a matching bed frame though, as most single bed frames will do the job. Popular options include:
  • ​​a single divan bed such as this £120 one from Dreams, which offers a good flat base for your mattress and is usually the cheapest option. A 'platform top single divan base' is basically a wooden frame covered in fabric whilst a 'sprung edge single divan base' is a posher option with its own springs. The main downside with divan bases is that they can look a bit boring but you can buy colourful single divan bases for about £120 at a shop like Divan Base Direct and you can upgrade so that you get a single bed with storage.
Blue single divan bed
Not the most exciting picture in the world, but a single divan base offers solid support
  • a single wooden bed (or bedstead/bedframe as they're otherwise known) is a popular alternative to a single divan bed. Posh ones are made from oak whilst standard ones are made from pine (e.g. this £175 John Lewis single bed). If it's got a 'solid slat base' it will feel a bit firmer than a 'sprung slat base'. Make sure the slats aren't too far apart or your mattress won't like it. This expert guide reckons that the gaps should be 7cm or less. ​See our top 5 single wooden beds.
John Lewis white single bed made from wood
John Lewis offer a couple of highly rated single wooden bed frames which come in three colours
  • a single metal bed looks nice and usually comes with a headboard attached. Cheap ones can be a bit squeaky or come with nasty metal rungs instead of wooden slats which spread out the weight much better. ​Take a look at the overall weight of the bed and the weight limit as that gives an idea of how sturdy it is. This white single bed from Birlea is a good value option at £139 but there are others in our guide to the top 5 single metal beds.
White single bed by Birlea
This Birlea single bed comes in white or black
  • a single ottoman bed or a single storage bed offers lots of extra space for hiding away your spare bedding or your Christmas decorations. Many ottoman beds and storage beds only come in double or king size but some good ones are available as a single bed size such as this Yardley Upholstered Ottoman Bed Frame from Dreams (£249)
**Dreams Sale: 20% off this ottoman with a mattress until 26/01/21**
Grey single ottoman bed from Dreams
A single ottoman bed is a good place to hide all your old stuff

2. ​Happy Beds Majestic 1000 Pocket Sprung Single Mattress - £139 (medium tension)

Is this one of the five best mattresses you can buy in the UK? Well, not it isn’t.

So, why have we included it, I hear you cry?

Quite simply, this is a cheap single mattress which offers good quality for a great price. It won’t impress your friends or win industry awards but it will provide you with a decent 3ft mattress for less than £150.

It’s a pocket spring single mattress, which is the type of bed that most of us are used to. It's got 1000 springs which is towards the lower end of the usual range but is adequate for most people (well, technically there are 1000 springs on the king size version rather than the single size mattress but let's not make this too boring and complicated). ​Very heavy people might benefit from a higher number such as this Happy Beds Signature 2000 Pocket Sprung Organic Single Mattress.

The Majestic 1000 can be turned over, which should help it last a little longer than most cheap mattresses. It’s also a little bit deeper than a typical cheap single mattress at 25cm. It also has something called a 'hand tufted finish' which is a boring thing relating to the buttons which hold it together on top. It’s a good sign of quality, anyway.

Reviews are good at 4.3 out of 5 from 280+ customers on Amazon or 4.6/5 on the Happy Beds website. It comes with a 5 year guarantee which is not sensational but it good for the price.

It’s a medium tension mattress. If you want to keep life simple and only have one order to deal with, Happy Beds also sell lots of cheap single wooden beds, single metal beds and single fabric beds which all have a 5 year guarantee. Most cheap single beds just have a year or two warranty.
Happy Beds single pocket spring mattress
This single pocket spring bed has an impressive specification for the cheap price

3. Brook + Wilde Lux Single Hybrid Mattress - £549 (soft, medium, firm or extra firm)

**Brook + Wilde Lux Discount Code: 40% off £599+ with code 40LUX until 03/05/21**
Brook + Wilde is another one of those ‘bed in a box’ mattresses which we mentioned earlier. Much like the others, you get a decent length warranty (10 years) and a home trial period (100 nights) which makes up for the fact that you can’t try them out in stores easily.

This one stands out for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, and most importantly, it comes in a choice of soft, medium, firm or extra firm. Most single ‘bed in a box’ mattresses don’t offer a number of different firmness levels. As I said earlier, you need to find a single mattress which is the right firmness for your weight, build and sleeping position.

If you’re very light and sleep on your side then you’re more likely to get the right support from a softer single mattress than someone who is heavy/large who sleeps on their back.

Secondly, this is actually what’s known as a ‘hybrid’ single mattress. Whilst it does use some foam, it also has pocket springs so it might be less of a leap for a lifelong pocket spring mattress user who is thinking about switching to a different type of mattress.

You can buy single bed frames designed to go with the Brook + Wilde Lux mattress including a single ottoman bed with storage. However, as mentioned earlier, you can more or less use any bedframe or divan base with this single mattress. The main ones I'd avoid are very cheap single metal bedframes with metal rungs instead of slats or a cheap wooden single bedframe with big gaps between the slats.

The Brook + Wilde brand scores 4.6/5 on TrustPilot at the time of writing (January 2021).
Brook and Wilde single hybrid mattress
Brook + Wilde's single mattress comes with a trial period and four firmness options...
Brook and wilde single divan with storage
...and you can upgrade to get a single divan bed or single ottoman storage bed to go with it

4. Sleepeezee Memory Comfort 1000 Pocket Pillow Top Single Mattress - £299 (medium/firm tension)

If you want a mid-priced single mattress from a highly respected bed brand then I would take a look at Sleepeezee.

They tick a lot of boxes for me when it comes to a quality specification but they’re usually not as expensive as prestigious brands like Hypnos and Vispring. They also come with a 60 day trial period, so you can swap it if you don’t like it. Trial periods are pretty rare amongst traditional mattress brands.

The Sleepeezee brand has a Royal Warrant, meaning that they’re used by a Royal Household. The brand also scores well with customers (4.2/5 on TrustPilot) and several of their mattresses have won awards from experts in recent years.

We've picked out the Sleepeezee Memory Comfort 1000 Pocket Pillow Top Single Mattress which takes a bit of unpicking to figure out what that long title actually means.

The '1000' and the 'pocket' bits in the title refer to the fact that it uses pocket springs and has 1000 of them.

Most guides I've read suggest that 1000-2000 pocket springs is the usual range in a good mattress. If you're average sized then a number towards the bottom of that range then 1000 will do the job nicely whilst heavy people might prefer a number nearer to 2000 (such as this Sleepeezee single bed). 

The 'memory comfort' and the 'pillow top' bit in the name means that this mattress has a top layer which aims to add a bit of comfort whilst the pocket springs offer most of the support. The downside with a single pillowtop mattress is that you can't flip it over to help extend its life so you just rotate it round to avoid getting lumps and bumps. Lots of people like the comfort of a pillow top mattress. Memory foam can make you feel a bit warm in bed but this mattress only has a very thin layer and it doesn't seem to be a common complaint from reviewers. 

Several of Sleepeezee's mattresses are award winners, such as the Sleepeezee Hybrid 2000 Pocket Gel Mattress ​and the posh Sleepeezee Mayfair. However, we've picked this one out as it's a bit more affordable and it's a hugely popular mattress with an average score of 9/10 from about 400 reviews. The Memory Comfort 1000 comes with a 5 year guarantee whilst some posher Sleepeezee single beds come with a 10 year guarantee.

Several Sleepeezee mattresses can also be bought as single divan beds, so you don't have to search around for a suitable base for it to sit on.
Sleepeezee memory comfort single mattress
Sleepeezee has a Royal Warrant, terrific reviews and multiple awards...
Single divan bed by Sleepeezee
...and several single mattresses are available as single divans with storage (although this photo shows the king size version)

 5. John Lewis & Partners Natural Collection 5900 Pocket Sprung single Mattress - medium or firm - £799

A single mattress from the John Lewis & Partners Natural Collection is worth a mention for anyone who has the budget for a high quality single mattress.

The Natural Collection mattresses are made by a Yorkshire company called Harrison Spinks. I won’t bore you with every detail of their ‘brand story’ but they’ve got a Manufacturing Guild Mark which very few mattress makers are awarded. They have also won a number of awards at the National Bed Federation Awards in recent years (the bed industry’s main awards).

John Lewis & Partners deserve credit for offering detailed descriptions with their mattresses, so you can actually figure out why some mattresses are three times the price of others.

This 5900 model has the added bonus of coming in medium or firm tensions so you can get one which is suitable for you. John Lewis & Partners is one of the few mattress retailers which gives clear guidance on firmness. They recommend their medium single mattresses if you’re 8-16 stone or their firm single mattresses if you’re 16 stone plus.

It’s a pocket spring mattress, which also has lots of natural materials like wool and cotton which are breathable and comfy (some argue that people with allergies are better with manmade materials, such as a foam mattress). The 5900 number refers to how many springs it has. However, there's a limit to how many full size pocket springs you can fit onto a single mattress. The majority of springs are a layer of tiny little springs which add a bit of comfort.

I wouldn’t bother spending this much money on a spare bedroom mattress but it’s worth considering if you’ll be using it every night.

If you've got this sort of budget, I would also look at Vispring and Hypnos which offer similarly classy single beds.
John Lewis single pocket spring mattress
John Lewis Natural Collection single mattresses aren't cheap - but they are high quality

Further insights - how popular are single mattresses?

Google trends data on mattress size popularity
Screenshot from Google Trends showing that searches for 'single mattress' are second to 'double mattress' searches
You may, or may not be interested in this further exploration but I like to crunch the numbers and do some research and digging into the mattress market. 

Unsurprisingly, mattress brands don't tend to release detailed sales figures showing which of their models are selling well and which aren't. They also don't release details on sales of the different sizes of its mattresses. 

However, we can find some revealing data using the Google Trends tool. A query on search data over a 12 month period in the UK shows us relative popular of search terms for 'single mattress', 'double mattress', 'king size mattress', 'super king mattress' and 'small double mattress'. It doesn't give us sales figures but it's not a huge leap to suggest that they will follow a similar pattern.

The blue bar in the graph above represents the 'single mattress' search term which is second only to the 'double mattress' search term. 'King size mattress' is similar in popularity to 'single mattress' whilst 'super king mattress' and 'small double mattress' are bumbling along at a much lower figure.

Of course, there are other possible variants which might perform differently (e.g. 'single mattresses' v 'single mattress' or 'king mattress' v 'king size mattress') but the general pattern is likely to be the same.