account.gov.uk speed test — 20 Oct 2026

Measured from the wfix.shop server on 20 October 2026 at 16:13 UTC. Grade A (94/100), with the screenshots, the timings and the fixes that matter.

https://account.gov.uk/

20 October 2026 at 16:13 UTC · Free test · report pt_dc025cd9639a

Re-test this page Test your own site

Grade

94/100

Performance98/100

Structure89/100

14 audit(s) passed, 2 need work

First byte (TTFB)272 msmeasured from this server

Fully loaded1.13 sfirst byte + slowest asset

Requests9document + assets

Page weight154.4 KBcompressed transfer

HTML document4.1 KBno compression

ProtocolHTTP/2CloudFront

Where the first byte went

DNS lookup 79 ms 29%
TCP connect 50 ms 18%
Server wait 143 ms 53%

Measured on the connection that fetched the HTML. Every other request on the page waits for the end of this bar before it can start.

How this page compares

First bytefaster than 80% of 4,999 pages tested here272 ms against a median of 449 ms

Page weightlighter than 83% of 4,999 pages tested here154.4 KB against a median of 650.5 KB

Fully loadedfaster than 89% of 4,999 pages tested here1.13 s against a median of 1.84 s

Requestssends fewer requests than 89% of 4,999 pages tested here9 against a median of 26

Every report published here is in this comparison, so it is a reference population of pages tested from one server - not a benchmark of the whole web.

What these numbers mean

The first byte arrived in 272 ms. That is workable, and the cheapest win left is caching or a warmer connection.
The page transfers 154.4 KB over 9 request(s), which is lean. Css files are 83% of it, so split the stylesheet so the first screen does not download the whole site.
It runs over HTTP/2, so the assets share a connection instead of opening one each.
The largest element painted at 1.12 s, inside the 2.5 s Google calls good.
Layout stayed still (CLS 0.002), so nothing jumps under the reader's cursor.

Fix first: Compress text responses - Turn on brotli (preferred) or gzip for text/css, javascript and text/html in the web server. This is the cheapest win available on almost any site.

Read on one shared server, not a visitor's phone: use it to compare pages against each other, not as a promise about every connection. We fix what these tests find.

Screenshot

What the page looks like

Loaded in headless Chromium on this server. Click an image to open it full size.

Mobile screenshot of account.gov.uk — **Mobile** 390 × 844 · 54.0 KB · page is 844 px tall

Browser render

The same URL loaded in a real browser, so these are the readings curl cannot produce. The grade above is still built from the server measurements.

Largest contentful paint1.12 sgood is under 2.5 s

Cumulative layout shift0.002under 0.1 is stable

Total blocking timenone over 50 mslong tasks during load

First contentful paint1.05 sfirst content on screen

Browser page weight236.3 KB8 request(s), scripts included

Largest contentful paint1.12 s

Goodgood under 2.5 s, poor over 4 s

Cumulative layout shift0.002

Goodgood under 0.1, poor over 0.25

Total blocking timenone over 50 ms

Goodgood under 200 ms, poor over 600 ms

Page weight by type

What the page is made of

Css 1 request

128.4 KB 83%

Images 6 requests

21.1 KB 14%

Other 1 request

800 B 1%

Transfer size, compressed as sent. 9 request(s) in total, 154.4 KB across all of them.

Top issues

Compress text responses

high impact

1 text response(s) of 10 KB or more are sent uncompressed, and the document itself is not compressed. That is 128.4 KB of compressible text.

Fix: Turn on brotli (preferred) or gzip for text/css, javascript and text/html in the web server. This is the cheapest win available on almost any site.

Cache static assets

medium impact

8 asset(s) answer without a Cache-Control max-age, so browsers revalidate them on every visit.

Fix: Version filenames on change and serve them with a long max-age plus immutable. That is what makes a returning visitor fast.