Our new survey of 2,000 UK adults aged 18-35 tells us what women and men really want in a relationship (10 October 2025)
Download our research note here
For both men and women, character is the most important quality to look for in a relationship. More than half of young British adults aged 18-35 rate honesty, kindness, friendship, interest and being polite and good mannered as ‘very important’. Looks and practicality were least important. For 86% of women and 74% of men, honesty is the number one green flag.
While women were more likely than men to rate most of these qualities as ‘very important’, it was the other way round for the lowest rated quality. Looks were the only quality more important to men than women, rated ‘very important’ by 35% of men compared to 23% of women.
In terms of qualities to avoid, more than half of women rated putdowns, whether in public or private, being flirty, and being not naturally good mannered, as ‘showstoppers’. Although these were also the top red flags for men, more women than men picked them as ‘showstoppers’.
Public put downs were the number one red flag for 87% of women yet only 69% of men. This gender gap was repeated for private put downs, suggesting that the kind of negative banter than is often used between men does not go down at all well with women.
Although women rate most red and green flags as more important than men (regardless of age, social class, marital status and religion), men and women tend to look for the same things in relationships – honesty, kindness, friendship, interest, politeness and empathy – and avoid the same things – putdowns in public or private, flirting, and bad manners.
Married men and women were also more likely than their unmarried counterparts to rate politeness, empathy, ambition and intelligence as green flags. Married men and women were more likely to rate partnership history and being slow to commit as red flags.
These are the key findings from our new survey of 2,000 young adults aged 18-35, conducted for Marriage Foundation by the polling company Whitestone.