Mortgage rates are rising again, making it more important than ever to find a lender offering a competitive deal.
Our unique monthly rates analysis can help you narrow down your search. We crunch the numbers on 28 mortgage scenarios, based on typical loan amounts, term lengths and mortgage products, to reveal the lenders to watch out for.
In September, First Direct narrowly beat the competition, topping our table for the third month in a row. For a typical borrower, it was £139 a year cheaper than the next best providers.
We've also looked at which lenders offer the cheapest deals for different types of borrowers, including first-time buyers, remortgagers and home movers. Read on to find the lenders to look into based on your circumstances.
Trusted reviews
The links in our tables take you to the Which? review of the mortgage lender, where you can find out more about how it performed in our customer satisfaction survey and the latest mortgage rates the provider offers (updated daily).
Cheapest lenders for first-time buyers
In September, two very different lenders were cheapest for first-time buyers: Beverley Building Society and First Direct.
First Direct is a Which? Recommended Provider for mortgages, so it's not surprising to see it do well in this category.
Beverley Building Society is a smaller provider whose deals are only available to applicants within a 50-mile radius of the Yorkshire town of Beverley.
Barclays, another Which? Recommended Provider for mortgages, was the third cheapest.
The table shows the three cheapest lenders, on average, for first-time buyers in September.
Table notes: Ranking based on Which? analysis of September 2026 Moneyfacts mortgage data. Table ordered by a first-time buyer score, which may have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Customer scores are based on a survey of 6,514 members of the public in August-September 2026 and combine overall satisfaction with likelihood to recommend the provider. Sample size in brackets. The average customer score is 73%. n/a means a lender did not receive enough responses to generate a customer score or it was not included in our research due to having a small market share. To become a Which? Recommended Provider, a lender must get a customer score above 71%, score at least four stars for customer service, rank among the 10 cheapest mortgage lenders for first-time buyers, home movers and remortgagers and be fully covered by the Financial Conduct Authority banking standards regime.
Cheapest lender for home movers
First Direct also offered the best deals for typical home movers in September.
On average, it was £310 cheaper per year than the next best lender, Barclays.
Our research continues to show that the largest lenders often offer the cheapest deals for the typical home mover. Five of the seven cheapest lenders were major banks.
In September, Nationwide and Yorkshire were the cheapest building societies. Both ranked joint 4th cheapest.
The table shows the three cheapest lenders, on average, for home movers in September.
Table notes: Ranking based on Which? analysis of September 2026 Moneyfacts mortgage data. Table ordered by a home mover score, which may have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Customer scores are based on a survey of 6,514 members of the public in August-September 2026 and combine overall satisfaction with likelihood to recommend the provider. Sample size in brackets. The average customer score is 73%. n/a means a lender did not receive enough responses to generate a customer score or it was not included in our research due to having a small market share. To become a Which? Recommended Provider, a lender must get a customer score above 71%, score at least four stars for customer service, rank among the 10 cheapest mortgage lenders for first-time buyers, home movers and remortgagers and be fully covered by the Financial Conduct Authority banking standards regime.
Cheapest lenders for remortgaging
Remortgaging was the only category that First Direct wasn't cheapest in September. Although the lender only narrowly missed out, placing second cheapest.
Instead, Barclays took the crown of offering the cheapest remortgage deals in September. On average, our analysis found that the bank was £155 a year cheaper than the next cheapest provider.
Another major bank, HSBC, rounds off the top three.
The table shows the three cheapest lenders, on average, for remortgagers in September.
Table notes: Ranking based on Which? analysis of September 2026 Moneyfacts mortgage data. Table ordered by a remortgage score, which may have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Customer scores are based on a survey of 6,514 members of the public in August-September 2026 and combine overall satisfaction with likelihood to recommend the provider. Sample size in brackets. The average customer score is 73%. n/a means a lender did not receive enough responses to generate a customer score or it was not included in our research due to having a small market share. To become a Which? Recommended Provider, a lender must get a customer score above 71%, score at least four stars for customer service, rank among the 10 cheapest mortgage lenders for first-time buyers, home movers and remortgagers and be fully covered by the Financial Conduct Authority banking standards regime.
Which lender should you choose?
With so many lenders to choose from, shopping around for a mortgage deal can be overwhelming. Our research can help you narrow your search and find providers likely to offer competitive deals for your situation.
You can find out how each of the 68 lenders scored overall for competitive mortgage deals – as well as more specifically for first-time-buyer, home mover and remortgage deals – using our table.
A score of 100% represents a market-leading mortgage deal based on our typical borrower scenarios. A one-point difference in the overall score equates to a saving of around £139 a year for the typical borrower.
Table notes: Overall score, first-time buyer score, home mover score and remortgage score based on Which? analysis of September 2026 Moneyfacts mortgage data. Table ordered by overall score, which may have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Customer scores are based on a survey of 6,514 members of the public in August-September 2026 and combine overall satisfaction with likelihood to recommend the provider. Sample size in brackets. The average customer score is 73%. n/a means a lender did not receive enough responses to generate a customer score or it was not included in our research due to having a small market share. To become a Which? Recommended Provider, a lender must get a customer score above 71%, score at least four stars for customer service, rank among the 10 cheapest mortgage lenders for first-time buyers, home movers and remortgagers and be fully covered by the Financial Conduct Authority banking standards regime. n/a means a lender did not receive enough responses to generate a customer score or it was not included in our research due to having a small market share.
About our research
In our analysis, we use Moneyfacts mortgage data collected weekly on each Monday of the month.
To determine the cheapest lender of the month, we combine results across all three borrower types: first-time buyers, home movers and remortgagers. A lender can only be named overall cheapest if it offers at least one of the most popular mortgage products across all three borrower types.
We've used market data to identify the most popular mortgage types and include them in our research. Lenders are not penalised for not offering a particular mortgage type.
To score providers, we create a typical borrowing scenario using market data, including loan amounts and term lengths. We factor in the interest rate and any initial fees to calculate the monthly cost. We then compare each lender’s best deal with the cheapest product available for that scenario.
