„Buy a single for the person who will sleep on it most nights, not for the spare room it might one day become. A teenager or an adult sleeping alone needs the same medium-firm support as anyone in a double, and in a single it costs far less.“
Single, small single or European single?
The standard UK single is 90 x 190cm. The small single is 15cm narrower at 75 x 190cm, and the European single is 10cm longer at 90 x 200cm. Length is the measurement to watch for a teenager who is still growing, and the National Bed Federation’s size guide gives a simple rule for it.
“We advise buying one that’s at least 10cm longer than the tallest person.”
On that rule a 190cm single suits sleepers up to about 180cm (5ft 11in). A European single needs a frame built for 200cm and 90 x 200cm sheets, so measure the bed before you order one.
Who will sleep on it?
A single does several jobs. The NBF describes the small single as mainly suited to younger children and a good first bed after a cot, which is where the Starlight 09 and the Emma Original Lite fit. Teenagers and adults who sleep alone every night need the same support as anyone in a double, and that is the case for the Emma Original, the Origin Hybrid and the Simba Hybrid Pro. A guest room used a few weeks a year does not justify a premium hybrid, so the IKEA Valevåg and the Nectar Classic Memory Foam are the sensible buys there. Couples who sleep in separate beds buy singles too, and the same NBF guide cites the Sleep Council’s 2017 Great British Bedtime Report, in which 12% said they slept apart, against 8% in 2013.
Firmness and support
Medium-firm is the right starting point for almost anyone who sleeps on a single night after night. In a randomised, double-blind trial of 313 adults with chronic low-back pain, published in The Lancet by Kovacs and colleagues in 2003, the group given medium-firm mattresses did better after 90 days than the group on firm ones, with odds ratios of 2.36 for pain in bed and 2.10 for disability. The authors concluded that “a mattress of medium firmness improves pain and disability among patients with chronic non-specific low-back pain”.
All ten singles here are sold as medium or medium-firm, but every maker uses its own scale. OTTY rates its hybrid 7 out of 10, Origin 6 to 7 and Nectar 6.5, Emma gives both its models 4 out of 5, and we put the Emma Original at 6 on our own 1 to 10 scale when we tested it. Lighter sleepers, children included, sink less into the same mattress, so a medium-firm single feels firmer to them than to an adult. Maker labels are only a rough guide. IKEA sells the Valevåg in medium firm and firm, and the medium firm version is the one ranked here.
The ten singles side by side
Prices below are the regular prices of the 90 x 190cm single at the time of writing (September 2026) and update from our product records.
Depth, weight and bedding
Depth runs from 22cm on the Emma Original Lite and the Starlight 09 to 28cm on the Simba Hybrid Pro. The deeper mattresses need a deep-pocket single fitted sheet. Weight counts when a mattress has to go up a narrow staircase into a box room or a loft bedroom. Emma lists the Original Lite single at 18.7kg, Origin its Hybrid single at 21.8kg and Nectar the Classic single at 22.2kg. Any mattress here fits a standard UK single divan or bed frame, so the base and the mattress can be bought separately.
Trial, guarantee and value
Service terms vary more than the prices. Starlight offers no sleep trial, Silentnight a 60-night exchange and OTTY 100 nights, while Emma, Simba and Origin give 200 nights, Nectar 365 and IKEA a 365-night exchange. Guarantees run from 5 years at Silentnight to 15 years at Origin. The Sleep Charity and Bed Advice UK suggest asking whether a mattress needs replacing once it is seven to 10 years old. The NBF calculates that every £100 spent on a new bed costs just 3.9p a night over seven years, so the single a teenager sleeps on every night deserves more of the budget than a spare bed.
If the room takes a wider bed, see our small double, double, king size and super king rankings, and for every size our best mattresses ranking.
