The 11 best sofa brands in the UK – and our top picks for a beautifully elegant English home

The sofa is the true protagonist of any living room story. It sets the tone for the entire space and, ideally, becomes a beloved piece that stays with us for years – if not a lifetime.

Investing in a sofa is no small decision; it can bring lasting satisfaction or lingering regret. Before making your choice, take time to understand exactly what you need from this essential piece. While it’s tempting to follow the latest sofa trends, it’s far wiser to pause, reflect, and choose a brand that aligns with your lifestyle and priorities.

With that in mind, we’ve curated a selection of the best sofa brands in the UK – names known for craftsmanship, comfort, and timeless design. Explore our top picks from each collection for inspiration as you begin (or refine) your search for the perfect sofa.

The best sofa brands in the UK

Jodie Hazlewood, owner of The House Upstairs, advises: 'When choosing a sofa, think about how you live. Are you someone who curls up under a blanket each evening? Then a deep, enveloping design makes sense. If you love to entertain, a more structured, upright shape might suit you better.'

Before browsing sofa brands or visiting showrooms, define your priorities. If guests often end up sleeping uncomfortably on your current sofa, consider a stylish sofa bed. For a cosy living room or cinema room, comfort and space to sprawl are key; in a grand Georgian drawing room, something elegant and timeless will feel more at home.

In short, match your choice to your lifestyle and setting – and note your must-haves before you start shopping.

Susie Watson Design

Susie Watson is perhaps most well known for her oh-so-pretty cottage-core homewares, often featuring endearing illustrations of flowering foxgloves, irises, and lupins set on dusty pink and pale blue polka-dot fabrics. It’s worth noting, though, that Susie Watson’s collection of sofas, whilst a fairly small collection, features standout designs that will work seamlessly with a more traditional aesthetic.

Each one is a shining example of traditional sofa design reimagined. There is the 'Classic Sofa', which is especially tricky to find fault with, a 'Chesterfield sofa' with the familiar buttoned upholstery, an achingly pretty 'caned sofa' (we’re calling it the perfect addition to a big entranceway or light-filled orangery), and their 'Georgian sofa' (pictured above), which is an instant winner if you’re putting a room together that you wish to reflect a sense of place and suitability.

It’s easy to see her sofas in grand drawing rooms and dinky low-ceilinged cottages alike. Each is handmade to order in a small workshop in Lancashire, and because of this process, each sofa is unique, and no two are the same.

Rowan & Wren

Rowan and Wren have long held the key to our hearts. A quick scroll through their website reveals an abundance of inspiration, but it’s their exquisite sofa collection that truly captures our attention.

Each piece is handmade to order in Britain and upholstered in the most beautiful, tactile fabrics – think earthy linens and soft ochre-striped cottons. Generously proportioned and thoughtfully designed, their sofas deliver on comfort as much as style; when they say it seats three, it truly does – an uncommon luxury.

These are timeless, quietly graceful designs, free from glitz yet rich in elegance. The Remy sofa is a standout example: crafted from sustainably sourced hardwood, with gently scrolled arms, pleated details, turned oak legs, and antique brass castors – a piece that embodies understated British refinement.

Darlings of Chelsea

Well known for their longevity and durability, Darlings of Chelsea’s sofas are great investments if you want a hardwearing sofa that will look close to identical five years into slouching on it daily to the day it arrives fresh from the box.

They have a whopping collection of over 170 fabrics and leathers, including a range of stain-resistant and recycled fabrics to choose from.

Corner sofas are often tricky to integrate into a room and can be bulky additions that dominate a space, but this sofa company has a plethora of corner sofa styles that are definitely worth browsing.

Darlings of Chelsea offer the option to customise your sofa by adding your seat cushion preference, chosen foot colour, and whether you'd like removable arms, so there's a lot of opportunity to get it perfectly suited to your tastes. The Norbury range is a particularly great choice; it even features a love seat sofa bed, which is ideal if you have a small space in which you need to have maximum functionality.

Maker & Son

There's a lot to love about this fantastic British brand. They have a showroom tucked away in rural Sussex, and if you do decide to visit and browse their array of sofas, you’ll be hard-pressed not to kick off your shoes and sprawl across them – they look extremely tempting, and they don’t disappoint.

Maker & Son’s sofas are cloud-like, deeply luxurious creations, and they’re impossibly comfortable. They have a stunning array of covers (hello, fuchsia linen, we’ve got our eye on you), and they’re removable - joy of joys! If you opt for the 100% Italian linen and cotton fabrics, they’re machine washable too, which is very handy for tackling sticky-fingered toddler prints or 9 pm wine spills.

One of the most wonderful things about a Maker & Son sofa is that it works beautifully as a plain canvas on which you can play and ad-lib. Whether that be a calming, cool-toned, neutral scheme or a pattern-heavy, wonderfully chintzy colour fest. The key is, they’re aesthetically sustainable and can remain a fundamental part of your living room no matter how much your style changes and evolves.

Loaf

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have likely heard of this iconic British sofa brand. Loaf has a plethora of sofa styles, from large corner to reclining love seats. Naturally, you’ll have an instinctive inclination as to which best suits your home style, but one to bear in mind is their Brioche sofa.

As the name suggests, it's a squashy, cocooning hug of a sofa, perfect for curling up after a long day with a mug of steaming tea. It’s a sizable piece of furniture, but it comes apart so it can fit through small spaces and slim doorways – it also means it can move with you quite happily, squeeze into awkward rooms, and be carried up tricky stairwells.

The cushion is filled with duck feathers, making it outrageously comfortable. The fabric range is impressive, with a vast selection of materials and colours to choose from. Many of the names make us chuckle – 'Battered Shed' and 'Compost Heap' are particularly fun – but their colours are achingly difficult to choose between. For us, Milky Tea and Rusty Rake are clear winners.

The House Upstairs

The House Upstairs is a total unapologetic feast for the eyes. The sofas are all joy-sparking, playful pieces that serve as the perfect spot for curling up in when the sun goes down. Admittedly, the options aren't endless, but that’s half the joy of purchasing from this brand - owner and founder Jodie Hazlewood has designed them all herself, and if it’s good enough for Jodie’s home, it’s good enough for ours.

As if there wasn’t already enough to love about this British company, they also offer a free design and fabric suggestion service for your sofa, so you can benefit from an expert pair of eyes to assess your style and advise you before you take the plunge.

If you’re on the lookout for something that transforms into a cosy pull-out bed, then you will savour the sight of 'The Amy Sofa'. Banish all preconceived notions of a sofa bed – a pencil-grey room-dominating behemoth; this most definitely is not. This is a pocket rocket of a sofa – it is a neat and unobtrusive, pleasingly vintage design. You can choose to fold it out into a small double, a double, or a king-size bed. The pull-out sofa mechanism is skillfully camouflaged; if you weren’t told, you really wouldn’t know at all.

Worth mentioning, too, if you’re having the sofa delivered to the UK mainland, the delivery is complimentary, which is always a nice touch.

Julian Chichester

If you want more control over the creative process and wish to feel like you're commissioning a piece of art in sofa form, then Julian Chichester is the place to go.

Hugely influenced by mid-century modern design and driven by a deep love for exceptional craftsmanship, Julian Chichester creates many artful pieces of furniture that will last a lifetime– and longer – and become heirlooms to pass down through the generations.

Honestly, we have a crush on every sofa in their collection, but if you're looking for a sofa for a more contemporary setting, nothing is quite as special or fitting as The Grove Sofa.

Cox & Cox

A great brand to get to know if you’re sofa searching but unsure which look would work best in your home, Cox & Cox doesn’t have one designated look, as such, but they have such a large selection that it’s impossible not to find something suited to your tastes.

They have a variety of modern Scandi-chic sofas as well as antique-inspired designs, and a selection of ottomans and loveseats which complement them well.

This Somerset-based company has some bang-on-trend designs, but it’s worth considering investing in pieces you’re confident will outlive fleeting fashions, so our pick would be their Dinan Sofa, which is the perfect fit for structured living room layouts and will undoubtedly stand the test of time. It has a very supportive high frame and duck feather-filled cushions, so it adds a pleasing formality and structure to a room.

Oka

Oka has a plethora of sofa styles, from classic and structured to relaxed and casual, and each design is truly beautiful.

The Pippo sofa is particularly handsome, with a gently curving back and arms that are upholstered in cotton woven in an Italian mill. The linen features a stripe, half of which is horizontal, the other half vertical, for a pleasing mismatching style. It is supported by tapered bobbin feet. Oka designed this piece with a modern farmhouse in mind; the striped pattern and neutral colours pair beautifully with light, airy interiors.

Arlo & Jacob

A family-run business with a strong reputation for well-made sofas that stand the test of time. A far cry from the fast-paced production line, each sofa is made by hand in Nottinghamshire, and every detail is tended to by one pair of hands.

Arlo & Jacob have a large selection of sofas in many shapes and sizes, but each is made to withstand the tyranny of abuse brought about by families, children, and pets – they even have a robust, family-friendly fabric selection well worth exploring. Our favourite? We say go for the 'Grace' sofa if you’re searching for an unfussy design that has style and substance.

Sophie Conran

Sophie Conran is a beloved British designer, and her online shop houses invariably beautiful collections of sofas, armchairs, coffee tables, fabrics, tableware, garden accessories, and many more highly desirable homeware items. But for now, we turn our attention to Sophie Conran’s collections of sofas, some of the best in the business, each handmade in Derbyshire, and, despite their elegant, even delicate appearance, they're built to withstand modern lives.

If you find that the endless onslaught of family, friends, children, and dogs wreaks havoc on your sofa and so daren’t even dream of investing in such a beautiful item since it wouldn’t last five minutes, think again. Luckily, these sofas all come with loose covers, so they can be removed for cleaning, with a bow detail at the back, making it a genuinely uncomplicated and unfussy process.

Sophie Conran’s Coco sofas have been, for a very long time now, an immovable feature of our ‘drawing room wish list.’ They’re timeless, defy all trends, and are wonderful heirloom pieces that can be passed down through generations and cherished for years to come.

A sofa is a place we sit, nap, eat, drink, console, and celebrate. A good sofa will ideally be with you for many, many years to come, so selecting a sofa is no small task.

As you contend with not just aesthetics but the practicality of your sofa and the myriad of choices there are on the market, be sure it’s going to be a place you will actually want to sit. That seems like an obvious consideration, but ultimately, even if it is a sculptural masterpiece or hides a myriad of impressive functions, if it is uncomfortable, it will be unwelcoming; if it is unwelcoming, it won’t stand the test of time.