TIC UK Leveraged Trading Broker Universe — Q1 2026 | Open Dataset | The Investors Centre

Written by: By: Thomas Drury

Thomas Drury Co-Founder & Senior Trading Analyst

expertise:: CFD Trading, Forex, Derivatives, Risk Management
credentials:: Chartered ACII (2018) · Trading since 2012
tested:: 40+ forex & CFD platforms with live accounts

Checked (CII Verified Professional)

See Full Bio →

Reviewed by: Reviewed: Dom Farnell

Dom Farnell Co-Founder & Investment Strategy Lead

expertise:: Broker Comparison, ISA Strategy, Portfolio Management
credentials:: Active investor since 2013 · 11+ years experience
tested:: 40+ brokers with funded accounts

See Full Bio →

Last Updated: Updated: May 14, 2026

Fact Checked

How We Test

Real accounts. Real money. Real trades. No demo accounts or press releases.

What we measure:

Spreads vs advertised rates
Execution speed and slippage
Hidden fees (overnight, withdrawal, conversion)
Actual withdrawal times

Scoring:

Fees (25%) · Platform (20%) · Assets (15%) · Mobile (15%) · Tools (10%) · Support (10%) · Regulation (5%)

Regulatory checks:

FCA Register verification · FSCS protection

Testing team:

Adam Woodhead (investing since 2013), Thomas Drury (Chartered ACII, 2018), Dom Farnell (investing since 2013) — 50+ platforms with funded accounts

TIC Investments Ltd · Companies House #15242358

Unit Gf4, Eagle House, Great Whelnetham, Bury St Edmunds, IP30 0UN, United Kingdom

Quarterly reviews · Corrections: info@theinvestorscentre.co.uk

Disclaimer

Not financial advice. Educational content only. We're not FCA authorised. Consult a qualified advisor before investing.

Capital at risk. Investments can fall. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results.

CFD warning. 67-84% of retail accounts lose money trading CFDs. High risk due to leverage.

Contact: info@theinvestorscentre.co.uk

Affiliate Disclosure: We test every platform with real money. Some links are affiliate links — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. This never affects our rankings. How we test · Full disclaimer

Contents

Real-money testing of 17 leveraged-trading brokers indexed by The Investors Centre. 14 FCA-regulated UK firms were funded with live accounts between 14 January and 7 April 2026 from a wired Suffolk connection; 3 additional brokers are indexed for community awareness only. The dataset captures spreads on 12 forex pairs, news-window widening, execution latency, withdrawal speed across three methods, customer support response times, and editorial scoring across seven pillars. Released under CC BY 4.0.

What's in the file

The master CSV contains 17 rows (one per broker) across approximately 140 columns. Column groups:

Identification and regulation: broker ID, FCA Firm Reference Number, FCA Register URL, year founded, domicile, parent company, account type tested, and rank columns across nine TIC "best of" pages.
Spreads, costs and execution: EUR/USD plus 11 other FX pair spreads at fixed London-session times, news-window maxes (NFP, BoE, ECB), forex commission per lot per side, overnight swap rates, and median plus p95 execution latency from 50 EUR/USD market orders per broker.
Account features and products: platforms (proprietary, MT4, MT5, cTrader, TradingView, ProRealTime), product types (spread betting, CFD, options, futures, copy trading, DMA), tax wrappers (ISA, SIPP), leverage caps by asset class, FSCS protection and micro-lot availability.
Withdrawals, support and editorial: real £500 withdrawal tests across bank, card and e-wallet; phone wait, live chat and email response times; TIC overall score plus seven pillar scores; community, Trustpilot, iOS and Google Play ratings with sample counts.

Download

Download CSV (17 rows × ~140 columns) Master summary JSON — Coming Q2 2026 Raw observations CSV — Coming Q2 2026

License: CC BY 4.0. Free to use, share and adapt with attribution.

Methodology

Live funded-account testing at 17 brokers between 14 January and 7 April 2026 from a wired Suffolk FTTP 1Gb connection. Spreads sampled at fixed London-session times (08:00, 10:30, 14:45 GMT) on Monday, Wednesday and Friday across 14 weeks. Execution latency measured over 50 EUR/USD market orders per broker. Withdrawal speed tested with £500 transfers across three methods (bank, card, e-wallet). Customer support measured across three phone calls, five chat sessions and four emails per broker. News-window spread widening captured during four NFP releases (31 January, 28 February, 28 March and 4 April 2026), the Bank of England rate decision (6 February 2026) and the ECB rate decision (12 December 2025). Full protocol →

Verified data

14 of 17 broker rows verified against primary sources (live TIC page measurement plus FCA Register) as of 14 May 2026. The remaining 3 (Forex.com, IC Markets, FxPro) are indexed for community awareness only and flagged as placeholder until the Q2 2026 test cycle.

The team who tested this

Thomas Drury — Co-Founder and Senior Trading Analyst (Chartered ACII, 2018)
Adam Woodhead — Co-Founder and Senior Platform Analyst
Dom Farnell — Co-Founder and Investment Strategy Lead

TIC AI Trading Tools — Q1 2026 — 4 AI trading tools (TradingView, SignalStack, Kavout, TrendSpider) tested against real broker accounts.
TIC UK Investing Platforms — Q1 2026 — 13 UK investing platforms (ISA, SIPP, LISA, GIA, robo-advisors) tested with two standardised model portfolios.
TIC UK Crypto Exchange Universe — Q1 2026 — 11 crypto-trading platforms (7 FCA-registered, 4 non-FCA) measured for fees, custody and staking.

Cite this dataset

For academic, journalistic or research use:

The Investors Centre. (2026). TIC UK Leveraged Trading Broker Universe — Q1 2026. Retrieved from https://www.theinvestorscentre.co.uk/about-us/how-we-test/datasets/trading-brokers/. CC BY 4.0.