The Bed Index 2026: What Britain Really Buys
The double at 135cm by 190cm is still Britain's default bed, but the king size at 150cm by 200cm is the size most households want and only some bedrooms can carry. In this 2026 index, Furniture in Fashion sets out the standard UK mattress dimensions, explains why frame footprints always exceed them and shows how circulation clearance, not wall to wall measurement, decides whether an upgrade works. The report reads bed sizing against the minimum double bedroom width in the Nationally Described Space Standard and against the flats and terraced houses recorded in the English Housing Survey, where the absence of loft and cupboard storage has turned the bed base into the largest untapped volume in the home. It compares ottoman and drawer bases on access rather than capacity, examines how fabric, leather, wood and metal frames behave in daily use, and pairs every standard bed size with a comfortable minimum room dimension....