Our favourite British watches of 2024

Russell Sheldrake

As hopefully many of you are now aware, Time+Tide is now in the UK. Oxford Circus, London, to be precise, with our second Discovery Studio, and one of the first events we threw in this new space was our British Watchmakers’ Weekender. This weekend-long event brought 16 of Britain’s best watch brands into our Studio for 600 of you to get hands-on with and chat to over the course of two days. Of course, all of this was in partnership with the brilliant British Watchmakers’ Alliance, the hosts of the massively popular British Watchmakers’ Day back in March, and the newly formed industry body here in the UK that is aiming to help support and grow watchmaking in Great Britain.

Thanks to these events, we have had great exposure to the new releases of British brands this year, and so we wanted to highlight just a handful of them for you. Hopefully, these five show just how diverse, colourful, and progressive British watch brands are right now, as there seems to be a real hub of creativity growing in the sector outside of Switzerland.

Beaucroft Element

I have been lucky enough to handle this watch on a number of occasions now, and got to know the founder of Beaucroft, Matt, very well. As a result, I am convinced this is the best value proposition for an all stainless steel sports watch on the market. And if you like your watches with a twist of colour, then even better, as the Cambridge-based brand has you covered with its bright selection, which includes the Sunset Orange variant shown above. I won’t compare this to a Rolex OP, although that may feel natural when you first see it, as they are two products in very different price categories, but this could be an excellent everyday watch for anyone in need of spending well under four figures. Price: £649 (~US$820)

Farer Field Collection

This update from Farer caused a bit of a stir around the Time+Tide offices, the level of consideration in the details and specifics of this new Field collection shows that the brand is committed to improving its catalogue without sacrificing the design language that caused the original collectors to fall in love. With three dial options available, all of which falling into the muted tones that can go with anything, there is a lot going for this upgrade from Farer. Price: £1,095 (~US$1,400)

Studio Underd0g 03Series Salm0n

We could have easily gone for the Hand Delivered Pizza Watch that we collaborated with Studio Underd0g on at the start of this year, or even the brand’s new Gen 3 01Series of chronographs that feature updated movements, but we wanted to opted for the Salm0n as it is perhaps the perfect example of Studio Underd0g subverting the industry norm, while making a fan favourite at the same time. Yes, it’s the most expensive SU production watch, but it holds a Swiss calibre and its dial is gorgeous. Price: £1,700 (~US$2,200)

Vertex M36

The Vertex M36 has come very close to being my watch of the year after I was given the chance to wear it for a couple of weeks. While we all know Vertex does field watches extremely well thanks to the brand’s 80+ years of experience, seeing them shrink the design of the popular M100A down to the original 36mm diameter proved to me how good this watch can be. The smaller size with the three easily changed strap options that this comes with mean that this is a watch that can be good in pretty much any situation. And an added bonus, those blocks of lume in the shame of numerals glow like a torch in the dark. Price: £2,150 (~US$2,700)

Christopher Ward Bel Canto Classic

The Bel Canto from Christopher Ward has been one of the biggest success stories to come out of the UK watchmaking scene in the last 10 years. And this year, Mike France and his team decided to give us an updated and classically designed version with the Bel Canto Classic. The guilloché pattern dial that comes in four vibrant shades is paired with traditional Roman numerals on the time-telling sub-dial to create this far more considered look compared to the original. The accessible chiming watch brought a lot of noise with it when it was first released, and now that the collection is growing with no signs of its popularity slowing down, we can expect more of the Bel Canto in the future. Price: £3,495 (~US$4,400)