Top Five Lawn Mowers For 2021

Rebecca Marcus

In this article

Our tests have uncovered big differences in quality across the full range of lawn mowers available on the market.

In the past we’ve found Don’t Buy lawn mowers costing over £600 and Best Buy lawn mowers for less than £150. We've also seen that sometimes, older models will outperform newly launched models, so new doesn't always mean improved.

All of the lawn mowers in the table below have been put through our rigorous field testing, so you can be sure they’re the best of the bunch for cutting grass while also being easy to use. Take a look at our top picks of lawn mowers in the table below.

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Best budget lawn mower

71%

£125.00

Reviewed Feb 2016

Although it's a little pricier than some other mowers of around this size, this Best Buy is one of the only cheap lawn mowers that is actually good enough for us to recommend. It cuts well and leaves your lawn looking smart. It fills the grass box right up, so you won't be running to the compost heap more than necessary. It's light, but feels like a sturdy machine, and it has some features that make it easy to use.

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Best corded electric lawn mower

74%

£280.50

Reviewed Apr 2018

Scoring well in our tests thanks to excellent cutting performance across all types of grass, this electric mower is one to consider. Although its size has a slight impact on how easy it is to weave around the garden, it's still an excellent choice for people with a larger lawn.

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Best cylinder mower

67%

£765.00

Reviewed Sep 2013

This excellent mower is our top-scoring powered cylinder lawn mower. It copes with longer grass and gives a very neat finish on short lawn. It's self-propelled so it doesn't need much pushing and is easy to manoeuvre. The front and back rollers enable you to cut right over the edges of the lawn and produce bold stripes.

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Best budget petrol lawn mower

76%

£374.60

Reviewed Feb 2019

This Best Buy lawn mower is a good price for a petrol machine, and it handles itself well on all grass types. It also has an impressive mulching mode, which distributes finely cut clippings on your lawn to keep it healthy. It's rather noisy though, and its grass collection could be better.

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Best hand push lawn mower

65%

£120.00

Reviewed Feb 2010

If you're after a beautiful lawn without the noise and fuss of a powered machine then this large push cylinder mower is an ideal choice. It's quite wide so covers the ground quickly and gives a neat finish. This robust mower copes well with cutting both long and damp grass and collects the clippings quite well. It has a wide range of cutting heights and gives an impressively neat cut on short grass. The cutting-height adjuster is very easy to use.

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Table correct as of 24 March 2020.

Not found the right product for you? Browse all our lawn mower reviews.

Some of the worst lawn mowers

The only way to tell if a lawn mower is any good is to use it to cut lawns in a variety of different conditions, which is why we do exactly that in our Which? independent lab tests. We cut long and short grass when it's dry and when it's wet to find out how well the mowers will cope with cutting your lawn.

Not all lawn mowers are great. Here are two models that could leave you feeling underwhelmed, either because they don't cut well or because they're tricky to use.

But avoid these mediocre models

43%

£89.90

Reviewed Mar 2015

This corded electric mower may be cheap, but it’s awkward to use and leaves your lawn looking a mess.

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41%

£49.00

Reviewed Mar 2013

This push mower is fine on short, dry grass, but can’t cope with long or damp grass and doesn’t collect the clippings well.

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Table correct as of 24 March 2020.

We review more lawn mowers than anyone else

Which? tests around 3,300 products every year, from washing-up liquid to cars.

When testing lawn mowers:

We measure how well each one cuts grass – from short, ornamental lawns to long meadow grass.
Time how long it takes to cut the grass.
How well the mower collects the grass clippings.
How neat it leaves the lawn edges and how smart the finished lawn is.
We also rate each lawn mower on how easy is it to use.

Find out more about how we test lawn mowers.