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Dirty data: Tech-heavy Thames Valley scores big in adultery index

The sordid truth about Bracknell and Guildford – as Slough cleans up its act

The UK’s tech hotspots have made a shockingly prominent showing in an adultery website’s list of the most adulterous towns in the UK – though some, thankfully, showed a dramatic slippage in extra-curricular activity compared to last year.

Adultery site Illicit Encounter has helpfully applied a bit of big data magic to its database, to produce a cheating map of the UK, which reveals the wealthy commuter towns of the South East and Thames Valley are a seething hotpot of extra marital malarkey.

Apparently, the most adulterous town in the UK is High Wycombe, with an estimated 2.12 per cent of the town population playing away from home. While not a techy hotspot per se, the town is close to the Thames Valley. Interestingly, a GMB survey apparently ranked it the fourth dirtiest town in the South East, though we suspect this is because of the proximity of the M40.

Second on the list was Guildford, which is one of the computer gaming centres of the UK, hosts offices for a number of tech companies, has a thriving space industry, and is where many City of London techies go to sleep. Clearly this isn't enough to keep the occupants fully occupied. Apparently 2.05 per cent of the Surrey county town’s inhabitants are having affairs, which equates to 1,250 people - well up on last year’s 1,001.

Maidenhead came in sixth place. The jewel of the tech-heavy Thames Valley is where many execs from vendors and channel partners alike make their homes - before lying in someone else’s. The site found 1,660 residents were having affairs this year, up on the 1,646 last year. Disgusting. And probably time for a name change, if we're honest.

In distribution-heavy Slough the number of people having affairs has thankfully bombed, with 915 straying this year compared to 950 last year. Things have also become subdued in nearby Reading - home of the mysterious Winnersh triangle amongst other things - where the number of people having affairs dropped from 1774 last year to 1719.

Straying along the M4, Bracknell came in at 12 place, with 1.57 per cent of the population enjoying relations with someone other than their partner. This represented 1211 people having an affair, versus 1212 last year. So, things aren't getting worse here, at least.

Then again, Bracknell has been transfixed by one of the industry’s biggest divorces over the last year – the one between major local employer(s?) HP Inc and HPE. We'll be watching closely to see if the depravity index creeps back up once the dust has settled.

Meanwhile, Newbury, home of Vodafone, clocked up 854 affairees, versus 833 people the year before. Which kind of makes that logo just look like a big dirty wink (I said wink), doesn't it? Adulterous activity also climbed in Basingstoke, which clocked up 675 people having an affair, versus 662 the year before. Maybe they should just rename it Babylonstoke. Or Basing...actually, we'll stop there.

The site also provided a handy list of adulterers' favourite places to conduct affairs. Apparently, ten miles away from home or work is the optimum distance for city dwellers to conduct affairs, while resident of small villages and towns should add another five miles.

Apparently two thirds of affairs are conducted during working hours, with 12-3pm and 4-6pm being the prime times. And lastly, the site found that German car makes constitute the top three preferred vehicles for the extra-nuptially curious.

So there you have it: if you spot your partner’s Audi 15 miles away from their office at 2pm when they’re supposed to be putting the final touches to a cloud migration strategy, you have every right to be suspicious. Though you should probably nail down your own cover story before you confront them. ®

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