Diving in the United Kingdom

British diving is like Longfellow's Matilda: when it's good, it's very very good . . . and then there's the other 360 days of the year. Its main limitations are first, that it's often cold and dark, so you need a dry suit; second, it's organised around club diving, with groups organising their own boat and equipment, it lacks the kind of resort dive shacks where you show up with little more than a credit card and within the hour you're on the water. These two are linked because a dry suit has to fit just so, else the neck seal either garottes you or lets in gouts of cold water. It's not practical to hire one off the shelf, and you must have training in how to use it, with try-outs in the pool and at an inland site before going out to sea. You can just about get away with wearing a wet suit provided a) it's a chunky toasty affair, say a two-piece 7mm semidry, and b) the water is relatively warm, ie summer and not particularly deep or extended dive time, and c) you only do the one dive then change and get warm. Coming up with blue lips from Dive One and shivering through a surface interval is not a good prelude to Dive Two.
The main training agency in UK is BSAC, though PADI certification is widely available. If you're here for an extended period, eg at university, by all means get involved with your college dive club and get trained; this will take several weeks and you'll probably do your first few open-water dives in a chilly quarry. But nowadays most Brits train in warm climates then decide whether they want to brave their cold home seas (and mostly decide against). You'd be mad to travel to Britain for the purpose of initial training. The Bible New Testament describes how a madman was cured by driving out his demons to enter a herd of pigs, who plunged over a cliff into the Sea of Galilee (Mark 5:1-20, Matthew 8:28-34, Luke 8:26-39). If those pigs had instead done the traditional British diver training course, they'd be just about qualified by now.

Starting at the northern tip of the country, because Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands is probably the only dive area for which you'd make a special trip to the UK. When Germany surrendered at the end of World War One, its fleet was disarmed and brought to this enclosed reach of sea. But peace negotiations dragged on and Admiral Reuter believed the British would seize the fleet for their own purposes, so he had them all scuttled. Many were later salvaged, but seven big ships remain (in about 30 m depth) and are regularly dived. The centenary of the sinking is in June 2019 and will be a bit of a circus, so come another time. Orkney also has shallower wrecks and reefs, eg along the "Churchill barrier", the causeway that links several islands.
Continuing clockwise, the northeast coast is scenic, rocky and often suitable for shore diving, especially around the Scottish / English border. Areas include the villages of Dunbar and St Abbs, and further out lie the Farne Islands of Northumberland. To the south, coastal conditions aren't so good, and you have to venture some miles offshore, eg to the wreck of the Polish liner Piłsudski off the Humber estuary.
The English Channel is littered with wrecks. Sites (east to west) include: Chesil Cove and Portland Bill in Dorset, Swanage Pier in Dorset, Fort Bovisand in Devon, the Eddystone Rocks off Plymouth in Cornwall, The Manacles rocks off the Lizard Peninsula of Cornwall, and the archipelago of the Isles of Scilly.
The Bristol Channel lies between Cornwall and Wales, its premier site being the protected island of Lundy. Much of South Wales is industrial, till you reach the more attractive peninsula of Pembrokeshire, eg Martin's Haven. There's another area around the islands of Anglesey and Holy Island.
Further north, there's a lot of river run-off (eg from the Mersey) and the west coast sites are exposed to the weather. There's not much until you get into the Firth of Clyde, with many wrecks, and on Arran the protected area of Lamlash Bay. The seas around the Hebrides are clear of run-off and, whilst often wild, there may be shelter between the islands; the Sound of Mull being a popular example. You will be very lucky if conditions allow a trip out to lonely St Kilda, 40 miles out in the Atlantic.
Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man have diving similar to the Hebrides.
UK inland dive sites are in flooded quarries and lakes. They're generally only dived for training / refreshers, testing kit, or if bad weather has blown out a sea trip. Most dive clubs are within 30 mins drive of their local "muddy puddle". Some bigger centres worth a longer drive include Stoney Cove between Leicester and Coventry, the National Diving and Activity Centre at Chepstow, and Capernwray near Carnforth.
Cave diving (including in old mine workings) in Britain is considered a technique of caving, not a specialty within diving, so it's not covered here. Enough to say that you need to be very good indeed at what you're doing; several of the divers in the Tham Luang cave rescue of 2018 were British.
The UK has a large number of dive sites, both inland and coastal, and many of these are wreck dives. The inland dives include a number of lakes, quarries and caves.

Marine dive sites

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                          Wreck sites

                          
                          Wreck sites are plentiful and popular and include:
                          
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                                                                                                                                      Inland dive sites

                                                                                                                                      Quarries and lakes

                                                                                                                                      Dive sites of the United Kingdom include a number of inland sites at disused quarries. These include:
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                                                                                                                                                  Cave diving sites

                                                                                                                                                  
                                                                                                                                                  

Several of the wreck diving sites are archaeological sites or war graves.

Emergency services

• Police.

• Ambulance service

• Sea rescue

• Recompression chamber

• DAN hotline

The UK has an extensive range of service organisations for recreational and technical diving, and is one of the world centres for commercial diving.

Learn

Recreational and technical diving schools can be found in many centres, and the British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC) trains members at many of their branches

Buy

The full range of diving equipment can be found at UK retail outlets, and a significant number of diving equipment manufacturers are based in the country.

Rent

Do

Cave diving and wreck diving

Fix

Service details

UK diving conditions require a relatively high level of competence and fitness compared to the tropical scuba destinations.