A new helmet costs a fortune right? Wrong, these are our top five lids for under £200

In the UK the only bit of kit that you must wear by law when you ride is a motorcycle helmet. Keeping your head safe is crucial, wearing an up to date helmet when riding can save your head in the event of an accident.

So, buying a good one is important, and you might think that to get a good lid you will have to outlay a huge amount of your hard-earned cash, but that isn’t necessarily true. There are plenty of great, safe and good looking budget helmets out there for less than £200, so there’s no need to go crazy and spend just shy of a grand on the top-spec lid.

What to consider when buying your helmet

Safety

First and foremost safety should be one of your biggest considerations. All helmets sold here in the UK must meet the latest ECE 22.06 standard, but some will also have been put through a SHARP safety assessment to be awarded a star rating depending on performance. It’s worth checking this out at the Safety Helmet Assessment and Rating Programme (SHARP) website.

Type

Another thing to consider when buying your helmet is which type you require. This will really depend on what sort of riding you do and what features you feel you can’t live without. If you ride off the tarmac, you might want to look at adventure helmets with peaks for deflecting low branches and debris.

Or if you ride a sportsbike at speed on the twisties, then a sporty helmet with aerodynamic features like spoilers may be more your thing. Perhaps you cover lots of miles either commuting or touring, so you might want to consider a sports-touring helmet that allows for intercom fitting so you can listen to music and hear your sat nav instructions.

Whatever type you go for, these are our top five helmets for under £200 that we have tried and tested.

How MCN tests budget helmets

At MCN, our team of expert journalists have decades of experience gained over hundreds of thousands of miles in order to provide you with opinions and evaluations you can trust, alongside news of the most significant developments in motorcycling safety gear. We want you to stay safe, enjoy your riding and hopefully look great while doing so! 

We don’t test our kit to destruction; we use it exactly how you do, in the real world and in all conditions.

That means we can deliver impartial buying advice you can rely on. To make it onto this list, budget helmets must have been worn for thousands of miles by our team of experienced testers, show no major flaws, and meet modern safety standards as well as offering exceptional value for money. 

Each of our expert reviewers tests their lids for a variety of things, both subjective and objective. Factors assessed include the helmet’s conformity to the latest ECE 22.06 safety regulations, whether comms systems can be installed, what type of chin strap fixture they have, how heavy they are and if they include details such as a drop-down sun visor, removable peak or any additional aerodynamic properties.

However, we also assess how they fit, their perceived build quality, how quickly we’re able to swap the visor out, what the venting feels like and how comfortable/adjustable the liner is during daily use. And of course, being a budget helmet article, we also assess carefully each lid’s positioning within the market to say if it’s great value or not.

We cover thousands of miles in these lids and regularly compare them with one another in the office, so collectively we’ve built the sort of knowledge base you can trust.

If you can’t see a review against a helmet on this page, it’s because we haven’t tested it yet or because it did not achieve four star or above. Only helmets that earn four or five stars make it into our best of buying guides. These helmets will only be included if we think they’re important and relevant in the market, and rest assured, we will be working on bringing you a review as soon as we’ve done the miles.

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Here’s a brief run-down of the star rating system we use, and what each score means:

• 1 star – Poor performance in this category or overall. A helmet with a single star rating has fallen below the expected standard and should be avoided.
• 2 stars – Basic performance in this area or overall. A helmet with a two-star rating has managed to perform to a barely acceptable level and there is room for improvement. It might be lacking safety features, be poorly built or far too expensive to recommend.
• 3 stars – An average performance in this area or overall. A helmet with a three-star rating has achieved a basic level of performance and is deemed adequate.
• 4 stars – A product has performed over and above the accepted averaged in this category or overall. A helmet with a four-star rating has surpassed expectation and delivered in a particularly impressive way.
• 5 stars – A helmet has performed at the highest possible level in a particular category or overall. A product with a five-star rating has delivered to the highest possible level, impressing the tester with its performance. We would happily spend our own money on it.

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