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Best electric lawn mowers in 2026 as tested by our expert team

Published: Wednesday, 8 July 2026 at 7:22 pm

Light, quiet and easy to use, we review budget corded electric lawn mowers to help you find one for your lawn.

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Lawn mowers – if you've got a garden, chances are you need one, even if you don't really like gardening at all. So it's a big market, with a lot of different products in different categories available, from basic hand-push mowers all the way up to modern cordless lawn mowers and robotic lawn mowers.

Despite all this, bang in the middle of the market still lies the classic lawn mower type that perhaps most sheds still house an example of – the corded electric lawn mower. And no wonder – corded mowers are cheap, lightweight and easy to use, so they're absolutely perfect if you want to stay within budget and keep things simple.

But even though this category is not as big as it used to be, there's still a ton of choice, and ample opportunity to get this purchase wrong. So that's why we have created this rundown of the best corded electric lawn mowers available to buy today.

From 2026, you’ll only see newly awarded Best Buy badges on corded electric lawn mowers that score 4.5 out of 5 or higher. Anything rated 3.5 or above will still feature in our ‘Best of the rest’ list. Oliver Parsons

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Our best electric mowers to buy at a glance

Comparison table: best electric lawn mowers

MowerRatingRRPCut widthWeightNoiseCableCut heightGrass boxWebb Weer334.8/5£99.9933cm8.8kg89dB10m25-65mm35LMountfield Electress 384.5/5£159.0038cm11kg95dB15m25-75mm40LCobra GTRM344.5/5£122.9934cm13kg96dB10m20-75mm35LRyobi RLM13E 33S4.5/5£119.9533cm9.9kg89dB8m20-60mm35L

In every review, we award outstanding products our coveted Best Buy award. To see these and the others we recommend, browse our pick of the best corded electric lawn mowers, below:

Our 4 best corded electric lawn mowers

1: TOP RATED: Webb Weer33 electric lawn mower

Our best budget electric mower for small gardens, under £100

RRP: £99.99

Our rating: 4.8/5

A star rating of 4.8 out of 5.

Available from: Amazon (£94.48), Robert Dyas (£99.99) and Tool Station (£94.48)

Best Buy all-round electric mower 2021: Webb Weer 33

Our best budget electric mower for small gardens, under £100: Webb Weer 33

Reasons to buy:

Reasons to avoid:

I was impressed by the superb design of this mower. It’s extremely easy to assemble and folds for storage with a comfortable foam handle that can be adjusted to various heights. There are five cutting heights to choose from ranging from 25-65mm, and a single lever enables easy adjustment. It has a cutting width of 33cm, and the black cable is 10m long, with cable tidy hooks to keep it wound up and in one place in storage. The fabric grass collection bag has a generous capacity of 35L, and the full indicator lets you know when it needs emptying.

The handle on this mower is easily unscrewed to fold in half over the body of the mower and if necessary, you can also slip the handles out of the deck to help it fold completely flat and squeeze into a tight storage space. The mower is relatively quiet, and it cut well, right up to the edges of my lawn. It’s also lightweight and comfortable to manoeuvre. My only quibble is the black mower cable, which could be a brighter colour so it'd be easier to see. For just £99.99 and with a warranty of two years, this is a great value mower. Kay Maguire

RRP: £99.99
Cutting width: 33cm
Weight: 8.8kg
Noise: 89dB
Type: corded electric
Cable length: 10m
Cutting height range: 25-65mm
Grass box: 35L

Read the full Webb Weer 33 review

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2: Mountfield Electress 38

Our best electric mower for large gardens

RRP: £159

Our rating: 4.5 out of 5

A star rating of 4.5 out of 5.

Available from: Amazon (£159)

Best Buy budget mower 2023: Mountfield Electress 38

Our best electric mower for large gardens: Mountfield Electress 38

Reasons to buy:

Reasons to avoid:

This sturdy electric mower felt really robust out in use on the lawn, and I liked its relatively wide cutting width of 38cm, which made for fewer passes up and down the lawn. I found it simple to put together, with three handle heights to suit different users, and it has a useful six heights of cut, from 25-75mm, which are easy to change with a single lever. It manoeuvred well around the lawn despite its weight and was pleasingly simple to use, producing a neat cut. It comes with a large grass collection box of 40L too, so you're not constantly emptying clippings on the compost heap.

When you've finished mowing, it's easy to store, with a handle that folds flat over the body of the mower, so it takes up very little room, and a detachable cable that can be hung up or stored in a drawer. It has such a long 15m cable that I was able to pack my extension lead away completely. Only its black colour and lack of cable safety clip let it down. Kay Maguire

RRP: £159
Cutting width: 38cm
Weight: 11kg
Noise: 95dB
Type: corded electric
Cable length: 15m
Cutting height range: 25-75mm
Grass box: 40L

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3: Cobra GTRM34 electric mower with rear roller

Our best electric mower for a stripy lawn

RRP: £122.99

Our rating: 4.5/5

A star rating of 4.5 out of 5.

Available from: Amazon (£114.99) and Just Lawnmowers (£106.99)

Best Buy for features in 2021: Cobra GTRM34

Our best electric mower for a stripy lawn: Cobra GTRM34

Reasons to buy:

Reasons to avoid:

It's always a good start when a mower is as easy to put together as this one. Very little assembly is required, you just need to attach the handle with its easy-to-use clips and finish fixing the grass collector. The illustrated instructions are clear, but unfortunately, they haven't included a diagram. There's a very helpful, easy-to-follow video guide on the Cobra website that shows what to do.

This Cobra mower has a 34cm cutting width and a rear roller if you're on the lookout for those ever-desirable stripes. Although it's reasonably heavy and may be harder to lift and carry than some of the mowers in our test, I found it well-balanced, and it cuts and collects long grass very well. There's a choice of seven cutting heights, and it's easy to change them with a single lever on the deck. The handle has only one height, but I liked the cushioned padding, and it has a cable relief clip, which helps to keep the electric cable tucked out of the way.

The fabric grass bag has a capacity of 35L, which folds flat for easy storage. The mower itself also took up little storage space in the shed, double-folding down nicely, thanks to the two sets of easy-clip levers on the handle. Overall, it's easy to use and manoeuvre, cuts and picks up well and at just over £100, with a two-year warranty, it's excellent value for money. Kay Maguire

RRP: £122.99
Cutting width: 34cm
Weight: 13kg
Noise: 96dB
Type: corded electric
Cable length: 10m
Cutting height range: 20-75mm
Grass box: 35L

Read the full Cobra GTRM34 electric corded mower review

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4: Ryobi RLM13E 33S

Our best electric mower for small gardens, £100+

RRP: £119.95

Our rating: 4.5/5

A star rating of 4.5 out of 5.

Available from: OnBuy (£119.95) and B&Q (£119.95)

Best Buy for cable safety 2021: Ryobi RLM13E-33S

Our best electric mower for small gardens, £100+: Ryobi RLM13E-33S

Reasons to buy:

Reasons to avoid:

The Ryobi corded electric mower has a 1300W engine, a cutting width of 33cm and a 10m long, orange cable. I found it simple to assemble, with clear instructions and no extra tools needed. Its handle folds for storage, the blade can be adjusted to a choice of heights, and, best of all, it was light to use. There are five cutting heights to choose from, ranging from 20-60mm, and these are easy to change with a simple lever. The foam handle feels comfortable, and a double drive lever gives you the choice of mowing with both hands or just one. The height of cut is simple to adjust, it cuts cleanly and well, and the grass combs on the deck allow it to cut right to the edge, so there’s no need to go back and tidy up the edges with a grass trimmer after mowing.

A mulching plug is supplied so you can shred the clippings and leave them on the lawn where they will break down, feeding the grass as they do. Otherwise, the fabric grass bag has a collecting capacity of 35L as well as a full indicator that flaps up when the bag is ready to empty. But I was most impressed by the convenient, effective cable relief clip, which keeps the cable tucked out of the way while you mow. At 9kg, this mower is easy and smooth to turn and manoeuvre around furniture and borders in the lawn. It comes with a three-year warranty, and we think it’s great value for money. Kay Maguire

RRP: £119.95
Cutting width: 33cm
Weight: 9.9kg
Noise: 89dB
Type: corded electric
Cable length: 8m
Cutting height range: 20-60mm
Grass box: 35L

Read the full Ryobi RLM13E 33S review

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The best of the rest

Although this model didn't quite achieve a BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy award, it still has features that make it worth recommending.

Stihl RME 235 electric lawn mower

RRP: £179

Our rating: 4/5

A star rating of 4 out of 5.

Available from: Amazon (£196) and Just Lawnmowers (£159)

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Stihl RME235 - BBC Gardeners' World Magazine

Stihl RME235

Reasons to buy:

Reasons to avoid:

If you're after a solid, no-frills mower, this Stihl electric lawn mower does the basics very well. It takes 205 minutes to fully charge – one of the slowest charge times on test, but cuts approximately 250 square metres on a single charge. I found its design well thought-out with an adjustable, folding handle for storage and a handy cable relief clip. It features a cutting width of 46cm, which is one of the widest on test. It has five cutting heights from 25-65mm, and they're simple to change with a single lever. The grass box opens right up for easy emptying, and there's an indicator that lets you know when it's full.

This mower is intended to deal with larger lawns quickly rather than cutting smaller, more intricately shaped gardens. I loved the eco-mode that slows the blades down automatically when it’s tackling short grass, and speeds them up to cut longer lawns. The cut is clean, and the grass is sucked up into the grass box, leaving the lawn clear of cuttings – one of the great advantages of buying a rotary mower. It felt sturdy and moved smoothly across my grass, but I found the drive lever a bit uncomfortable and stiff. It also took me the longest to assemble out of all the mowers I tested. Kay Maguire

RRP: £179
Cutting width: 33cm
Weight: 13kg
Noise: 93dB
Type: corded electric
Cable length: 17m
Cutting height range: 25-65mm
Grass box: 30L

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Einhell GC-EM 1600/37 electric lawn mower

RRP: £136.95

Our rating: 4/5

A star rating of 4 out of 5.

Available from: Argos (£130) and Homebase (£99)

2048-1365Einhell_GC_EM_BOTR

Einhell GC-EM 1600/37 electric lawn mower

Reasons to buy:

Reasons to avoid:

Forget having to check batteries, annoyingly slow chargers and high prices for lawn mowers. There’s still a strong use case for good old-corded mowers, and the Einhell GC-EM 1600/37 is an excellent example of how to do, most of it, right. While most garden power tools are now cord-free, some gardeners don’t want to navigate the hundreds of different batteries and their various chargers. This mower is a true plug and go machine. If you’ve got a plug socket nearby, you’re up and running in seconds.

As the name suggests, this mower takes its power from a 1,600W motor and cuts a handy 37cm wide swathe. Connecting the mower to the mains is a 10m bright red power cable. It’s quite a lot bigger than other more compact battery mowers I’ve tested before, with three handle heights to choose from and a big chunky handle section. At the handle end there’s a wide metal trigger that’s operable with either hand, as well as a big red safety switch on top to keep things safe. There’s no sign of a safety key like you’d find on a cordless battery powered mower, but it does include a clever cable strain relief hook. This should stop pulling on the base of the cable to avoid damaging the connection.

2048-1365Einhell_GC_EM_IRL_2

The Einhell GC-EM 1600/37 is easy to store with a handle that folds down neatly. Image: Harry Duncton

Choosing from a neat 20mm cut height in five steps up to an almost meadow-like 60mm is simple. The rather car-like height “shifter” handle is sprung, making choosing a height nice and easy. And weighing a shade under 11kg, carrying it around with the big handle on top isn’t too taxing. Setting this corded lawnmower up for its first cut did take me a little while though. Unlike a lot of budget friendly machines, I needed to install the wheels as well as the handle. The wheels are held in place by stiff hairpins that took quite a lot of force to get in place, then covered over by plastic hubcaps. Then I had to attach the bottom and tops sections of the handle to the chassis, and the carry handle to grass collection box. Again, it wasn’t difficult but might put off some users. It took me around 15 minutes to put the whole package together.

The 38L grass collection box is a semi-rigid one. These are my favourite because they fold down flat when not in use yet still manage to pack the grass in before needing to be emptied. 38L isn’t much, but when you’re tethered to a 10m cable, you can’t mow huge gardens anyway. Bear in mind that’s there’s no mulching plug, so you need to collect all the grass trimmings. Measuring 136cm in length, this is a surprisingly large piece of garden kit. Even though it comes in a small-ish package, I felt like I had to peer down at the front wheels because they seemed quite far away. On my first test cut, it was obviously quicker to get started as I didn’t need to charge up any batteries. But I soon found out my small back garden is big enough to run out of 10m power cable. It wasn’t a big deal. I simply dug out a 10m extension cable and got back to work. However, you’ll need to factor in this inconvenience if the far end of your lawn is any more than 10m from a power point. Happily, the motor didn’t struggle, even when I pushed it into long, thick grass and weeds. It didn’t even slow down, unlike some battery-powered mowers that bog down too easily.

Storing this mower away is easy enough. The handle folds down neatly, but it lacks dedicated cord storage. I would have expected to see a hook or cleat somewhere on the handle to coil the cable round. Instead, I coiled the cable and tied it with some garden twine. Not exactly elegant but it works. Also, this mower doesn’t stand up on its end, so takes up more floor space than necessary. Overall, I can’t find anything particularly wrong with the Einhell GC-EM. It cuts the lawn well and doesn’t get bogged down thanks to its constant supply of power. If you hate charging up batteries and have a small enough garden, this is a sensible investment. Harry Duncton

RRP: £136.95
Cutting width: 37cm
Weight: 10.75kg
Noise: 96dB
Type: corded electric
Cable length: 10m
Cutting height range: 20-60mm
Grass box: 38L

How to choose an electric lawn mower

Not all budget electric mowers are basic machines. Consider the following points to help you choose the right electric mower for you:

Budget Mowers Buyer's Guide - video

Follow our tips on choosing a budget mower to find the right one for your garden.

How we test the best lawn mowers

When we test lawn mowers, we follow the whole process from start to finish without any shortcuts. We unpack the mower from the box, put it together following the instructions (sometimes these are clear as mud, sometimes not!), and then get started, cutting grass over a wide area.

We mow over rough grass, smoother grass, slopes and bumps – whatever is in our way – just as you would with your own mower. And after that, we also take notes on how easy the mower is to fold down and put away, because if a mower is annoying in that regard, you'll always hate using it.

Then, we score each model against these four criteria, with equal marks attributed to each one:

For more on our testing process across all the different gardening product categories, see How we review

Why you can trust BBC Gardeners' World Magazine reviews

As trained gardeners and seasoned users of all sorts of garden tools, Kay Maguire, I, and the rest of the team at BBC Gardeners' World Magazine have reviewed shedloads of lawn mowers literally over the years, using our trusted testing matrix to make sure we're giving balanced, fair judgments.

We test lawn mowers in varied, real-world conditions, cutting the sort of grass most of us actually have in our gardens. Because we're real-world gardeners with lots of experience, we know what to look out for and the sorts of things that will make all the difference once you're using a mower week in and week out.

We give each mower an at-a-glance list of pros and cons for clarity, and a rating out of five. We also don't share product reviews with manufacturers or retailers before they're published, and we don't accept payment in exchange for positive reviews either.

Meet our testing panel

Oliver Parsons, Strategic Projects Editor
Oliver is a gardener and magazine journalist of 20 years’ experience. He trained as a professional horticulturalist at RHS Garden Hyde Hall in Chelmsford and has also worked for Gardening Which?, as a freelance gardener and with the gardening team at Down House in Kent. He is now Strategic Projects Editor at BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine and GardenersWorld.com, heading up our reviews desk, Apple News output and weekly newsletter.

Kay Maguire, Magazines Editor
Kay trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and has been writing and making films about gardening ever since. She has written for websites and magazines, including The Garden and Amateur Gardening, was Horticultural Editor on BBC Gardeners' World Magazine for five years, and has also written several books on a range of gardening topics from growing house plants to making the most of a small space. After several years as Reviews Editor, building up our reviews section into a leading resource for UK gardeners, she has now become Magazines Editor for BBC Gardeners' World Magazine, responsible for all print output.

Harry Duncton, Freelance Powered Tools Tester
Harry has a wealth of experience, from being a language teacher to a tree surgeon, and has built this into a career writing about all things DIY and gardening. A passionate believer in self-reliance, his aim is to inspire others to give it a go themselves and not worry about making a few mistakes along the way. A regular contributor to popular DIY blogs and a recent addition to the BBC Gardeners' World Magazine team, he loves tracking down the best new tools and writing about them.

Sue Fisher, Freelance Garden Writer
Sue’s extensive horticultural career spans over 40 years, starting with a decade in the garden centre and nursery industry before developing into an accomplished gardening writer, designer and speaker. Sue writes regularly for BBC Gardeners' World Magazine, GardenersWorld.com and Garden Answers magazine. She has written 10 books on subjects including container gardening, plants for small gardens and designing with colour, and she has co-authored other books with some of the biggest names in gardening.

Emma Crawforth, Horticulture Editor
Emma holds the Kew Diploma in Horticulture and has been working in horticulture for 18 years, including roles in public gardens, a plant nursery supplying plants for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and a training college for young horticulturists. She looks after an ornamental, fruit and veg garden at home and regularly undertakes trips to see plants growing in their natural habitats. She is the author of the Kew Publications book, Things to Do with Plants.

Jane Moore, Freelance Garden Writer
In a horticultural career spanning 30 years, Jane has been a head gardener at a Benedictine Abbey, a writer for national gardening magazines and newspapers, a researcher on BBC gardening programmes and a TV presenter on BBC Gardeners’ World. Among her many accolades are a Chelsea Flower Show medal, several awards from the Garden Media Guild and her books are published worldwide. She has spent 30 years working as a hands-on head gardener, using tools on a daily basis.

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This review was last updated in March 2026. We apologise if anything has changed in price or availability.

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