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Pattern

Regex for UK mobile number

UK mobile in 07XXX or +44 7XXX format.

The pattern

^(\+44\s?|0)7\d{3}\s?\d{6}$
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What it matches

  • 07911 123456
  • +44 7911 123456
  • +447911123456

What it doesn't match

  • 08911 123456
  • +44 1234 567890
  • 07 9111 23456

Notes & gotchas

UK mobiles start with 07 (or +44 7). All UK mobile numbers are 11 digits including the leading 0, or 12 with +44 prefix.

Code in your language

Use the explainer's Code tab to generate ready-to-paste snippets in JavaScript, Python, Java, .NET, Go, Ruby, and PHP for this pattern.

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About this pattern

UK identifier formats are set by HMRC, Royal Mail, and the BACS payments scheme. The regex here matches the format; full validation may need an additional checksum or lookup.

Quick usage in different languages

Once you've validated a candidate value matches this pattern, you'll typically use it inside your application code. Each language has its own regex syntax:

  • JavaScript: new RegExp(pattern).test(value) or /pattern/.test(value)
  • Python: re.match(pattern, value) with raw strings: r"pattern"
  • Java: Pattern.compile(pattern).matcher(value).matches()
  • C# / .NET: Regex.IsMatch(value, pattern)
  • Go: regexp.MustCompile(pattern).MatchString(value) — Go uses RE2 so some advanced features aren't available
  • Ruby: value =~ /pattern/ or pattern.match?(value)
  • PHP: preg_match('/pattern/', $value)

The explainer's Code tab generates these for any pattern you paste — including the right escaping and idioms for each language.

Common pitfalls

  • Anchors matter. The pattern starts with ^ and ends with $ — it expects the entire input to match. To find this pattern inside a longer text, remove the anchors and use the /g flag for multiple matches.
  • Case sensitivity. Letter ranges like [A-Z] only match uppercase. Use the i flag or [A-Za-z] for case-insensitive matching.
  • Escape user input. If you're building a regex from a string variable, escape regex metacharacters first to avoid bugs or injection — use RegExp.escape-equivalents in your language.
  • Performance. For this specific pattern the risk is low, but be cautious of nested quantifiers when adapting it — they can cause exponential backtracking on adversarial input.

See also

Browse all 300 patterns in the library, or open this regex in the interactive explainer to see a token-by-token breakdown, test against custom input, and generate code in seven languages.


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