Last updated: Friday 4 September 2026 (Europe/London).
Next update: when Talkmobile changes the Flex 30GB £6.95 rate, when iD’s 30GB 1-month or 40GB 12-month £7 cards move, when Lycamobile’s half-price 30GB intro ends on 30 September 2026, or when the live SIM hub shows a cheaper same-allowance 12-month total on a retailer page I can open.
By: Switch Editorial Team, Switch Squid Ltd
I am Switch. I compare SIMs for a living, and 30GB SIM only deals UK September 2026 is the mid-tier search comparison sites keep answering with a filter on a generic hub — or with a “30GB” grid that quietly mixes 25GB, 35GB, 40GB and 50GB on the same page.
uSwitch has no dedicated 30GB guide URL. You land on the SIM-only compare table, tick a box, and hope the card still means 30GB by checkout. SmartphoneChecker runs a thin 30GB page dated late August that still stacks 30GB next to 35GB and 50GB tiles. MoneySuperMarket’s SIM hub was still labelled “Best of June 2026” when I checked. This page is one tier: exact 30GB, priced from retailer shops on Friday 4 September 2026.
Our SIM only hub is every network and every allowance, ranked by total monthly cost. This URL stays on 30GB.
The cash lead this morning is Talkmobile Flex 30GB at £6.95 rolling on talkmobile.co.uk/sim-only-deals — twelve months £83.40, unlimited UK minutes and texts, Vodafone masts. One pound behind is iD Mobile 30GB at £7.00 on a 1-month plan on idmobile.co.uk/sim-only-deals — twelve months £84.00, Three masts, no annual price rises, roaming in 50 destinations with a 30GB fair-use cap. Same cash as iD’s 40GB 12-month at £7 — so if you will lock a year, the 40GB card is the smarter neighbour, and I say so below rather than stuffing it into the 30GB table.
Ofcom’s Communications Market Report 2026 puts average monthly data per mobile data user at 11.8GB in 2025 (CMR 2026 PDF). So 30GB is a heavy-user / commute-streamer / hotspot bucket — comfortably above average. If last month was under 8GB, start with 5GB or 20GB. If it was 60GB-plus, use 100GB or unlimited.
I will not invent a 30GB SKU. I will not rank a uSwitch tile the retailer’s own site does not sell. Every pound in the ranking table below is dated to a retailer page I am standing behind on 4 September 2026.
Filter 30GB on the hub
Open the SIM only hub. Set data around 30GB, pick 30-day or 12-month, sort by total monthly cost. Commission does not move a row. If a 1GB PAYM Plus card is still sitting on top, you filtered wrong — or the live Awin feed is still serving the wrong vertical.
Need a new handset instead of airtime? That is a different bill: compare phone deals or phone deals hub.
Already sure you want a thinner or fatter cap? Neighbour guides are 20GB SIM only deals UK, 100GB SIM only deals UK and cheapest unlimited SIM only UK 2026. This URL stays on 30GB.
What I verified today
Five retailer-verified exact-30GB plans. Dated Friday 4 September 2026. Near-tier cards (40GB, social-unlimited extras) live in the notes, not as fake 30GB rows. Comparison exclusives that are not on the shop today live in “What I dropped”.
Talkmobile Flex 30GB, talkmobile.co.uk/sim-only-deals, fetched 4 September 2026: SKU flex-30gb-7, £6.95 a month, 30-day contract, 30GB data, unlimited UK minutes and texts. Vodafone masts. Twelve-month total £83.40, average £6.95. This is the cash lead for unlimited UK calls at exact 30GB.
iD Mobile SIM-Only 30GB 1 Month, idmobile.co.uk/sim-only-deals (JSON-LD Product offer on the page), fetched 4 September 2026: £7.00 a month, 1-month term, 30GB, unlimited minutes and texts, no annual price rises, eSIM, roaming in 50 destinations with a 30GB fair-use data cap. Three network. Twelve-month total £84.00, average £7.00. Sixty pence more than Talkmobile for the year — and Three coverage if that is the mast that works at your postcode.
Lycamobile pay-monthly 30GB, lycamobile.co.uk/en/paymonthly/, fetched 4 September 2026: half-price intro £5.00 first month, then £10.00, new customers online only, offer copy runs to 30 September 2026, not in store. 30GB, plus international minutes on the plan page, EU data allowance 12GB / China 500MB on the promo terms. Twelve-month total £5 + 11 × £10 = £115.00, average £9.58. Not the cash lead. Named because the first-month teaser looks cheaper than it is.
spusu 30, spusu.co.uk/tariffs and spusu.co.uk/spusu30, fetched 4 September 2026: £9.90 a month rolling. 30GB, unlimited minutes, unlimited texts. EU roam 10GB / 500 minutes / 500 SMS. Uncapped 5G. Three masts. Twelve-month total £118.80, average £9.90.
VOXI Unltd Social 30GB 10 Plan, voxi.co.uk/plans, fetched 4 September 2026: £10.00 a month, 30GB general data plus unlimited social extras on that plan name. Vodafone. Twelve-month total £120.00, average £10.00. Different product from a plain 30GB all-data SIM — I am ranking the cash, and I am saying the extras are the reason someone might still pick it.
What I dropped
Comparison hubs and thin “30GB” round-ups still try to sell these as 30GB. Retailer shops do not match, or I could not verify the pound on the shop today.
Lebara 30GB teaser tiles on comparison sites — lebara.co.uk HTML this morning did not show a clean 30GB pay-monthly SKU (I saw 5 / 20 / other rungs). I dropped the comparison exclusive. Rank the shop when it prints 30GB.
Three first-party 30GB — three.co.uk hit a queue-it wall from this machine. I will not invent a Three pound. Reopen Three yourself if EE/Three coverage is the only thing that works.
giffgaff 30GB — bot wall / empty HTML from this crawl. Recent public promo noise is 40GB at £8 on 18 months, not 30GB. Not ranked as 30GB.
SMARTY 30GB — no 30GB SKU on smarty.co.uk today. Ladder jumps past 30 (20 / 40 / 100…). Nearest neighbour is 40GB at £10 on the plan cards — that is 40GB, so it stays out of the 30GB table.
iD 30GB on 12-month / 24-month — does not exist. iD’s 12-month ladder jumps 20GB → 40GB. The 30GB card is 1-month only at £7.
If a tile is cheaper than Talkmobile’s shop £6.95 and the retailer’s own site does not print that exact 30GB SKU, the tile is not a deal. It is a trap for people who do not click through.
Ranked by what you actually pay
Four columns. Ongoing rate is what the bill is while the current promo or rolling rate holds. Average is the 12-month total divided by 12. Every row below is retailer-verified on 4 September 2026.
Plan (dated 3 Sep 2026) | Term | Ongoing £ / month | 12-month average |
|---|---|---|---|
Talkmobile Flex 30GB (talkmobile.co.uk, unltd mins/texts, Vodafone) | 30-day | £6.95 flat | £6.95 (£83.40 total) |
iD Mobile 30GB 1 Month (idmobile.co.uk, unltd mins/texts, Three, no April rise) | 1-month | £7.00 flat | £7.00 (£84.00 total) |
Lycamobile 30GB (lycamobile.co.uk, £5 then £10, promo to 30 Sept, new online) | Monthly, website new customers | £10.00 after month 1 | £9.58 (£115.00 total) |
spusu 30 (spusu.co.uk/spusu30, unltd mins/texts, uncapped 5G, Three) | Rolling | £9.90 flat | £9.90 (£118.80 total) |
VOXI Unltd Social 30GB 10 (voxi.co.uk, social extras, Vodafone) | Rolling | £10.00 | £10.00 (£120.00 total) |
£6.95 is the Talkmobile month. £83.40 is that year. £7.00 is the iD month. £84.00 is that year.
Over twelve months Talkmobile is £83.40. iD 30GB 1-month is £84.00 — sixty pence more for Three and no April rise on that SKU. Lycamobile’s intro maths looks soft at £5, then lands at £115 for the year. spusu is £118.80. VOXI social 30GB is £120. The gap from Talkmobile to Lycamobile is about £32 a year for the same labelled allowance — enough to fund a handset case and then some.
Nano SIM going into a phone — 30GB SIM only deals ranked by 12-month cash.
£6.95 is the unlimited-calls year
If Vodafone coverage works at your postcodes and you want unlimited UK calls and texts on a rolling 30GB SIM, the cheapest retailer-verified year I can print today is Talkmobile Flex 30GB at £6.95 × 12 = £83.40 on talkmobile.co.uk. No 24-month lock on that Flex SKU.
If you want Three coverage, no annual price rise printed on the plan, and eSIM, iD’s 30GB 1-month at £7 is £84 for the year on idmobile.co.uk — sixty pence more than Talkmobile. That is the honest Three lead at exact 30GB.
If you will lock 12 months on iD anyway, stop buying the 30GB 1-month card out of habit. iD’s 40GB 12-month is also £7 on the same shop this morning. Same cash. Ten more gigabytes. That upgrade path is why mid-tier shopping is not “pick the number in the URL”.
Lycamobile’s £5 first month is a billboard. After month one you are on £10. After 30 September 2026, reopen lycamobile.co.uk before you treat £5 as live. spusu at £9.90 is the rolling Three option with a fatter EU roam data line (10GB) if that matters more than the monthly pound. VOXI at £10 is for people who live inside the social-unlimited extras — not for people who only compared the “30GB” label.
30GB is above the average. Check Settings first.
Ofcom’s 2026 CMR figure is 11.8GB average per mobile data user in 2025. A 30GB SIM is more than double that average. This URL is for people who stream on the commute, hotspot a laptop some evenings, or share a phone as a backup modem when home broadband wobbles.
Illustrative only, labelled as such: at a rough 3GB per hour for HD streaming, 30GB is about ten hours of video a month before maps, social apps and updates eat the rest. If Settings → Mobile Data (iPhone) or the Android data-usage screen showed 18–25GB last month with a week still to go, you are in the right shop. If it showed 6–10GB, you are overpaying for headroom — start on the 20GB guide instead.
Phone data usage at about 18GB of a 30GB cap.
I am not going to pretend 30GB is “unlimited in disguise”. Heavy 4K, multi-device hotspotting, or a week abroad under a tight roam cap will still bite. That is why the 100GB and unlimited pages exist.
Same £7 buys 40GB for a year on iD
This is the September-specific trap at the mid-tier. iD Mobile’s exact 30GB card is £7 on a 1-month plan. iD’s 40GB 12-month is also £7 on idmobile.co.uk today. Same network. Same monthly pound. More data if you will commit twelve months.
If you actually need rolling flexibility (moving house, testing coverage, waiting on a handset unlock), take the 30GB 1-month. If you already know Three works and you will stay a year, the 40GB 12-month is the better cash-per-gigabyte neighbour — and it is still not a 30GB row, so it stays out of the ranking table.
SMARTY’s nearest card is 40GB at £10, not 30GB. Do not let a comparison filter labelled “30GB+” sell you a 40GB bill without saying so.
You are buying a mast, not a logo
30GB on a dead mast is 0GB. The four UK networks still sit under the MVNO names.
If you want this mast | 30GB plan I named today | Parent | Check before you pay |
|---|---|---|---|
Vodafone | Talkmobile Flex 30GB £6.95 (cash lead); VOXI Unltd Social 30GB £10 | Vodafone | Indoor signal at home and work; roam terms on checkout |
Three | iD 30GB £7 (1-month); spusu 30 £9.90 | Three | Three coverage map; iD 40GB 12m at same £7 if locking a year |
EE / Lyca | Lycamobile 30GB £5 then £10 (promo to 30 Sept) | Lyca / EE family | Call/text caps and EU 12GB line on the plan page |
O2 | No retailer-verified exact 30GB on shop this morning (giffgaff wall) | O2 | Reopen giffgaff / O2 yourself; do not trust a comparison ghost tile |
Coverage checkers lie less than marketing pages. Test the mast that already works on a friend’s phone in your kitchen before you port.
30-day vs 12-month at this tier
Talkmobile Flex and iD’s 30GB card are short commitment. That is the point of mid-tier shopping in September: you can leave after a month if the mast is wrong.
12-month locks only win when the monthly pound drops enough to beat rolling cash and you will actually stay. At exact 30GB this morning, the cash lead is already a 30-day Talkmobile SKU. The 12-month story that matters is next door: iD 40GB for £7 on 12 months — more data, same pound as iD’s 30GB rolling card.
April rises still exist on many big-network SIMs. iD’s page copy on the 30GB 1-month plan says no annual price rises. Talkmobile’s Flex cards can still sit under group rise policies — read the checkout small print, not the comparison tile.
Roaming and eSIM, without the brochure
iD prints roaming in 50 destinations with a 30GB fair-use data cap on pay-monthly plans — which means a full UK 30GB allowance can be eaten abroad if you treat holiday data like home data. spusu 30 lists 10GB EU roam data plus 500 minutes / 500 SMS. Lycamobile’s 30GB promo terms called out 12GB EU and 500MB China. Talkmobile / Vodafone-family roam rules sit on the checkout — confirm before you buy a week in Spain on a “cheap 30GB” assumption.
eSIM: iD and spusu both lean into eSIM on the plan pages. Talkmobile Flex still ships as a physical SIM journey for many baskets. If your phone is eSIM-only, check the retailer basket before you celebrate the £6.95 lead.
How I ranked these (and what I refuse to do)
I open the retailer’s own SIM page. I take the monthly pound and the contract length printed there. I multiply by twelve, or I add the intro month plus eleven ongoing months when the page says so. I sort by that 12-month cash. I do not sort by commission. I do not sort by “from” price on a comparison exclusive.
I refuse to:
count a 35GB or 50GB tile as 30GB because a filter said “30GB+”
print a Lebara / Talkmobile / Three pound I could not match on the shop today
hide call caps (Lycamobile international lines, VOXI social extras) behind a single “30GB” label
pretend cashback portals change the retailer sticker price
Affiliate links, when we use them, do not move a row in this table. If Talkmobile is cheaper on talkmobile.co.uk than a partner deep link, the shop price wins the ranking.
FAQ
What is the cheapest 30GB SIM only deal in the UK right now?
On retailer pages I opened on 4 September 2026, Talkmobile Flex 30GB at £6.95 a month (£83.40 over twelve months) is the cash lead for unlimited UK calls and texts. iD Mobile 30GB at £7 (£84.00) is the Three-network lead one pound behind.
Is 30GB enough data?
For many people, yes — Ofcom’s 2025 average was about 11.8GB per mobile data user. 30GB suits regular video on the commute and light hotspotting. Check last month’s usage in Settings before you buy. Under ~10GB, look at 20GB. Over ~40GB, look at 100GB or unlimited.
Should I take iD 30GB or iD 40GB?
If you want month-to-month flexibility, take 30GB at £7 on 1-month. If you will stay twelve months, iD’s 40GB 12-month is also £7 today — same cash, more data. Do not lock a year for the smaller allowance out of habit.
Why did you drop Lebara and giffgaff?
Because I could not verify an exact 30GB shop SKU on lebara.co.uk this morning, and giffgaff blocked the crawl. Comparison teasers that are not on the retailer shop do not get a row.
Do these prices rise every April?
iD’s 30GB 1-month plan copy says no annual price rises. Other networks still use April rises on many SIMs. Read the plan’s own rise clause at checkout — not a blog table from last spring.
Can I keep my number?
Yes. Text to Switch (or the older PAC/STAC path where it still applies) moves the number. Start the port from the new retailer’s app or checkout after the SIM is active.
Where do I compare live SIMs across every allowance?
Use the SwitchSquid SIM only hub — filter around 30GB, sort by total monthly cost, then click through to the retailer before you pay.
Compare live 30GB SIMs
Retailer pages move. This ranking is dated 4 September 2026. Before you pay, open the shop URL in the table, confirm the pound, and check coverage at your postcodes.
Ready to filter the live grid? Compare SIM only deals on SwitchSquid — every network, sorted by what you actually pay, not by who shouted loudest on a comparison tile.
