How to use plugs from South Africa in United Kingdom

Plugs, sockets, adapters and other information needed for travelling from South Africa to United Kingdom in this page. If you want a report for other countries, re-start the wizard to find to electric adapters for your trip here.

Quick Chart at-a-glance

	South Africa	United Kingdom
Voltage:	220V, 230V.	230V.
Plugs Type:	M.	G, D, M.
Hertz:	50Hz.	50Hz.

If you are electrical savvy, perhaps the previous chart is all you need. If this is not the case, you can continue reading and discover what the chart is saying!

Plugs and Sockets at each country

In South Africa the following plugs are used: (includes Pretoria, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Stellenbosch, Port Elizabeth, Maseru.)

Plug Type M

Outlet Type M

... and in United Kingdom you will use: (includes London, Bath, Oxford, Cambridge, Brighton.)


Plug Type G	Plug Type D	Plug Type M

Outlet Type G	Outlet Type D	Outlet Type M

Considerations for the United Kingdom

It is likely you will only find plugs-type "G" in the UK. Plugs type "D" and "M" are considered "old" and not common. They are are still used nowadays to differentiate low-power lighting circuits. So please don't try to use an adapter on them for high-power equipments like hair-dryer or even battery chargers.
We keep "D" and "M" plugs in our database as we don't know your exact destination and you might find one next to a bed table. As a rule of thumb, you will probably be fine with the type "G" in hotels and big cities.

St Pancras, London

Blog

We have a post "Plugs & Travel Adapters for your next trip to Europe", maybe you want to read it.

Voltage

Take extreme care: the electric network is not homogeneous

Different voltages are used within the countries. So perhaps different voltages are used in different regions or cities. You will have to exercise extreme caution about this. Before pluging any electric device, you should check your device voltage and you must ask a local for the voltage used in the electric network. If you move to different city or region, you should ask again. Using electric devices in different voltage network could incurr in a broken device and even fire. Please read further the page for more information.

On the positive side, nowadays many devices will switch automatically to the network voltage and they will work just fine, i.e. mobile phone chargers are typically multi-voltage (but please, do actually check your own).

High-power devices don't usually handle different voltages due to the high-currents involved i.e. anything that its main purpose involves generating heat (or cold) like hair driers, baby bottle warmers, kettles, etc. On the contrary, modern low-power devices are likely to auto-detect and auto-adapt to different voltages i.e. usb chargers, laptop chargers, etc.

You might either need a step up voltage converter, a step down voltage converter, or maybe, nothing at all. When a country electronic grid is not homogenous, there is not much we can help but ask you to exercise caution.

Plugs Type

Some connectors are used in both countries

You will be able to plug the devices directly in United Kingdom (please read other sections of this reports in regards to voltage, etc.). Perhaps you will need adapters for some sockets, but it is usually easier to find adapters at destination if your plug is already being used in the country. Sometimes different cities uses different systems, you might need to do a bit more of research. If you find more information please let us know.

Adapters

Lists of adapters you can use in your travel:

Adapter: generic


Front	Back

This adapter allows you to use plugs type: A, B, C, D, E, F, I, M into outlets type: G.

This is a very cheap adapter without loose terminal and finger protection; it does have earth pass-though (good); but no good grip because of so many different supported plugs. We recommend to use a more expensive option if available.