One thousand office workers across the UK were surveyed* to gain an understanding of the nation’s perceptions of different English speaking accents. With research revealing 71% agree an accent can alter the way a message is perceived, it’s safe to say accents are very important in how we are portrayed as people.

Analysing demographics such as age, gender and region allows us to discover any patterns in these attitudes towards specific accents. The most calming accents were:
Southern Irish (17%)
Welsh (12%)
Edinburgh (8%)
Yorkshire (8%)
Northern Irish (6%)

Southern Irish topped the vote for most calming accent, with 168 of those surveyed selecting the Republic of Ireland’s accent as the most calming within the workplace.

The most motivating accents were:
Geordie (9%)
Yorkshire (8%)
Edinburgh (6%)
Eastender (5%)
Glaswegian (5%)

The most encouraging accents were:
Yorkshire (9%)
Geordie (9%)
Southern Irish (8%)
Welsh (6%)
Northern Irish (5%)

Similar to the results of the most motivating accent, a large portion didn’t believe any accent in particular to be the most encouraging. 293 voted for no accent, whilst Yorkshire ranked second with 90 UK office workers selecting their accent as the most encouraging.

Moneypenny’s survey also explored the most suitable roles for specific accents in the workplace such as providing customer service. In this section of the survey, office workers were allowed to select 3 options for each question.

The best accents for delivering bad news were:
Southern Irish (16%)
Welsh (14%)
Edinburgh (12%)
Yorkshire (12%)
Northern Irish (9%)

The love for the Irish accent continued, with the southern Irish accent ranked as the top accent for delivering bad news. There was no clear winner in this section of the survey, with Welsh coming in second and only 27 votes separating the Welsh and southern Irish accents.

The best accents for providing customer service were:
Yorkshire (17%)
Geordie (16%)
Southern Irish (16%)
Edinburgh (15%)
Welsh (15%)

Having said this, respondents generally favoured having no accent and believed it was the most motivating (37%), most encouraging (29%), the best for delivering bad news (39%) and finally, the best for providing customer service (27%).

Whilst again there was a large portion who didn’t believe accents affected the ability to provide customer service, the accents that ranked top for most calming also ranked high when it came to providing service to customers.

According to the survey results, the best accent for providing customer service is the Yorkshire accent at 17%. This was followed by the Yorkshire and Geordie accents, both at 16% of the vote.

The demographics revealed a slight bias in the voting patterns, with half of the North East voting for Geordie accents whilst 40% of Wales believed no English accent was best in providing customer service.

Wendy Swash, Chief Operating Officer at Moneypenny said: “It is interesting to see the different opinions stemming from various regions of the British Isles.

“We were surprised to discover that people believed having no accent was best for delivering both bad news and providing customer service

“Attitudes towards accents are bound to differ depending on region, however it was insightful to see the various emotions these accents evoked to varying degrees.’’

*The full findings from Moneypenny can be found here.