Portsmouth Is Officially The Cheating Capital Of The UK, Research Finds

Portsmouth has been official named as the cheating capital of the UK, according to a new survey by Ashley Madison, a dating website for married people.

The Hampshire city came out on top on a list of 15 UK cities in The Infidelity Hotlist for 2019.

Other extra-marital affair hotspots include the West Midlands with Coventry, Stoke-on-Trent and Wolverhampton all placing in the top 10.

The East Midlands' cities of Leicester, Nottingham and Derby also feature on the list, while London comes in at number 11.

The official list, created based on signup data per capital from the summer of 2018, is:

1. Portsmouth
2. Coventry
3. Bradford
4. Sunderland
5. Wolverhampton
6. Leicester
7. Bristol
8. Stoke-on-Trent
9. Plymouth
10. Edinburgh
11. London
12. Cardiff
13. Derby
14. Nottingham
15. Swansea

According to Christoph Kraemer, Managing Director Europe for Ashley Madison, the results are evidence that cheating happens everywhere.

"While most would assume that bigger cities produce more cheaters per capita, this data shows us what we were already aware of; infidelity lives everywhere," he says, going on to explain that cheating can happen anywhere.

Christoph adds: "Seeing a place like Portsmouth that's more well known for being the birthplace of Charles Dickens than its nightlife, beat out a fast-paced and transient locale like London, just reinforces that cheating isn't contingent on a big population; it happens in cities big and small."

The Toronto-based online dating agency caters for people that are married or already in relationships with 60 million accounts in 53 different countries - 86 per cent of which are men.

Ashley Madison's research was based on the number of sign ups to the dating site between 21st June to 22nd September 2018 based on 1,000 people.

Over in the US, Orlando in Florida was named by the dating site as the cheating capital following by Newark in New Jersey, and St. Louis in Missouri.