Father's Day Dads Survey Results 2023

Over 70% of UK dads prefer to receive personalised, thoughtful gifts for Father’s Day over practical presents, and 46% value family time over any other option. With Father’s Day fast approaching (Sunday 18th June 2023) this new data suggests that dads are perhaps more sentimental than we might have thought and, contrary to popular belief, it turns out that they don’t really want socks after all.

We surveyed over 1,000 UK dads and father figures to find out types of gifts they actually want and the kinds they find most meaningful. We also asked about the importance of various characteristics in gifts, including personalisation and sustainability, and for insights into the best and worst gifts the dads had ever received.

Tony Carr, co-founder of personalised gift company Create Gift Love, says “as a dad with two young children, I haven’t always felt represented by the high street offering of gifts and cards aimed at dads, which usually lean into stereotypes and “masculine” clichés, like beers, beards and BBQs. Sure, I have a beard, but it’s not my whole personality! I had a hunch that I wasn’t the only one so we launched this survey to find out how other dads in the UK felt, and the hunch was correct.

We already knew that personalised gifts for dads were popular, especially amongst our own customers, but it was really interesting to find out that collectively 76% of UK dads say family time and emotive gifts mean the most to them, while only 15% value practical gifts highly. When we asked them to name the best and most thoughtful gifts they had ever received, family-oriented and personal gifts came up a lot.

We also asked the respondents for the worst Father’s Day gifts they’d ever had and wow, some of them were shockers! Our recent survey of over 1,000 UK consumers buying gifts for Father’s Day revealed that 64% usually choose to buy practical gifts for their dads over emotive ones but according to our group of dads, things like socks and underwear just don’t scream “meaningful”! Coupled together, I think the two surveys show that there is a definite gap between what we think our dads want and what they actually want."

Want to know how the two surveys compared? Read the highlights here.

Key Data

• The five gift categories most wanted by dads in the UK are food and drink (37.66%), tech (36.66%). clothing (35.16%), personalised gifts (32.37%) and fragrance and grooming (30.37%).

• Dads value family time more than any gift on Father’s Day. 45.85% say that family time would mean most to them, followed by emotive gifts (30.67%).

• 68% of dads believe that having a gift personalised is either ‘important’ or ‘very important’ and given the option, 73.63% of dads would prefer to receive a personalised gift.

• Less than half of UK dads have a preference towards gifts made in the UK, with 52.35% saying this is ‘not important’ to them.

• 71.33% of dads would prefer their Father’s Day gifts to be made in a sustainable way.

Highlights of our survey of dads include:

What gifts dads really want

• What would you really like as a gift this Father's Day?

• What would mean more to you on Father’s Day?

• What's the best Father's Day present you've received?

• What's the worst Father's Day present you've received?

The importance of personalisation

• When receiving, how important is it that a gift is personalised?

• What is the most thoughtful gift you have ever received?

• Given the option, would you prefer to receive a personalised gift over a non-personalised gift?

Opinions on manufacture

• How important is it to you to receive gifts made in the UK?

• Given the option, would you prefer to receive a sustainably made gift over a non-sustainable gift?

We also found out...

• What's the best present you've bought for your dad or father figure?

• What's the best memory of your dad or father figure?

• What's the best piece of advice received from your dad or father figure?

What would you really like as a gift this Father's Day?

The most popular gift category with dads in the UK this Father’s Day is food and drink (preferred by 37.66% of dads surveyed).

Tech gifts, such as headphones, speakers, smart watches and coffee machines, came a close second at 36.66%, and other popular categories were clothing (35.16%), personalised gifts (32.37%) and fragrance and grooming (30.37%).

Less than 20% said they would really like shopping or restaurant vouchers and the least popular categories were novelty-esque gifts such as toys, bottle openers and magnets.

Just 10% said they would really like socks, the go-to-gift for dads all over the country.

What would mean more to you on Father’s Day?

The majority of dads say that family time would mean more to them than any other gift this Father’s Day (45.85% of dads surveyed), with emotive gifts such as family photos, personalised and homemade presents being the second most valued choice.

Despite the fact that practical presents, like tools, vouchers and kitchen equipment, are often considered the default safe-option for infamously hard-to-buy-for men, our survey revealed that only 15.48% of dads in the UK would consider practical gifts to be more meaningful on Father’s Day than quality time or emotion-led presents.

On the other hand, 3.6% of respondents admitted that time on their own would be the most meaningful gift to them.

What’s the best Father’s Day present you’ve received?

We asked our respondents what the best Father’s Day gifts they had ever received were, with a huge variety of results. Some dads have been treated to lavish gifts like cars, holidays and designer watches, while others named personalised gifts such as mugs and family photos as their favourite Father’s Day presents.

Family time also came up over and over in our results, supporting the data reported above. “A day out with the family”, “the company of children” and “spending the day exploring with my son” were among some of the many family-oriented responses.

But what about the not-so-great results?

What’s the worst Father’s Day present you’ve received?

According to our survey, dads don’t want socks. We heard earlier that only 9.9% named socks as something they would like, and when we asked the same group what their worst ever Father’s Day presents were, socks came up time and time again.

“Nothing” was also a common response, however there are two ways to interpret this result so the sentiment of the answers is not always clear. Some respondents went on to explain “nothing, I’ve never had a bad one” while others said “nothing, they forgot it was Father’s Day!”. It seems that "nothing", in response to this question, can have two very different meanings.

Some other comically bad Father's Day presents named by our respondents were a nose hair trimmer, a doorbell and a toothbrush. Perhaps some gift buyers take the idea of “practical” gifts a little too seriously.

When receiving, how important is it that a gift is personalised?

Receiving personalised gifts was considered important to a large proportion of our respondents, with 44.26% of dads naming personalisation as an “important” factor and 24.08% “very important.”

Almost a third, however, do not have a preference towards personalised gifts, with 31.67% saying it was not important.

What is the most thoughtful gift you have ever received?

The importance of personalisation was also clear when asking our respondents for the most thoughtful gifts they have ever received. The words “family”, “personalised”, “homemade”, “photo” and “pictures” were among the most frequent in our 1,001 responses, showing a commonality in the way dads define “thoughtful”.

Homemade gifts from the heart, personalised photo gifts and gifts relating to the recipients hobbies and interests came out top, with some respondents commenting:

“I got a crayon written letter explaining why I was the best dad in the world”

“A brick with my name on it and place in a wall at my favourite football stadium”

“A photo keyring of me and my daughter”

Given the option, would you prefer to receive a personalised gift over a non-personalised gift?

73.63% of dads would prefer to receive a personalised gift over a non-personalised gift, given the choice between the two, while 22.78% said no, they would not prefer a personalised gift.

3.6% answered ‘other’, with many explaining they had no preference, were happy either way, or that it would depend on the occasion.

How important is it to you to receive gifts made in the UK?

Over half of the dads we surveyed (52.35%) said that it was “not important” to them if gifts they receive are made in the UK. 36.06% said that UK manufacture was “important” to them, while only 11.59% said that it was “very important”.

More information about the importance of local manufacture to UK consumers can be found in the results of our 2023 Father’s Day Buyers Survey.

Given the option, would you prefer to receive a sustainably made gift over a non-sustainable gift?

Despite split opinions on the importance of UK manufacture, a clear majority of dads do prefer to receive gifts that are sustainably made. 71.33% said that they would prefer to receive a sustainably made gift, given the option, while 28.67% said that they would not.

Access this survey's raw data in Excel format