Are Cheap Padlocks Any Good | When a £20 Lock Is Fine and When It Isn't
CEN grades explained, closed vs open shackle, and the honest answer on whether a budget padlock is ever worth buying. From a Slough locksmith.
A £20 padlock from the Langley B&Q, or one of the tool shops off the Bath Road, looks reassuringly solid in the hand. Heavy. Shiny. The packaging usually says something like "hardened steel shackle" and implies your shed is now a vault. It isn't. But that doesn't automatically mean you wasted twenty quid. Whether you did depends entirely on what you're locking.
This is the nuance that gets lost online, where the advice is either "cheap padlocks are rubbish, buy a Mul-T-Lock" or "any padlock is a deterrent." Both are half-right, which makes both misleading.
The rating system most people have never heard of
Padlocks sold in the UK can be tested to a European standard called EN 12320, which grades them from 1 to 6. Grade 1 is the bottom. Grade 6 would stop a reasonably determined assault with angle grinders and bolt croppers for a meaningful amount of time.
What does the testing actually measure? Three things: the pull force needed to rip the shackle out of the body, the twisting force needed to wrench it off, and the cutting resistance of the shackle itself. There are also pick and manipulation tests for higher grades.
Here's what the grades mean in practice:
| CEN Grade | Typical use case | What it broadly resists |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Internal storage, low-risk | Light hand tools |
| 2 | Garden gates, low-value sheds | Basic bolt croppers, short dwell time |
| 3 | Commercial premises, garages | Larger croppers, some drill attack |
| 4 | High-value storage, plant hire | Sustained attack, grinder resistant shackle |
| 5–6 | Security containers, custody | Professional-level attack tools |
Most padlocks sold in UK supermarkets and DIY chains don't display a CEN grade at all. That tells you something. When manufacturers bother testing, they display it. When they don't display it, you can usually assume grade 1 or, frankly, untested.
Sold Secure is a separate certification run by the Master Locksmiths Association. Gold is the one worth having. Silver is acceptable for moderate-risk applications. Bronze is better than nothing. Look for the Sold Secure logo and the colour tier on the packaging, not just the price tag.
Open shackle versus closed shackle
This distinction matters more than most people realise.
An open-shackle padlock, the classic inverted-U shape, leaves most of the shackle exposed. A decent bolt cropper can snap a 10 mm hardened shackle in a few seconds if the attacker can get the jaws around it at the right angle. The lock body doesn't matter at that point.
A closed-shackle (or shrouded-shackle) design wraps the body around most of the shackle, leaving only a tiny section exposed. You simply can't get cropper jaws in at a useful angle. This is why a closed-shackle CEN grade 3 lock often offers better real-world protection than an open-shackle grade 4 that looks beefier on the shelf.
Most £20 padlocks are open-shackle. That's not a design flaw. It's a price point. Closed-shackle padlocks with meaningful certifications, think Squire SS65CS, Abus 83/55, or a Mul-T-Lock C-13, start around £35 to £70 depending on spec. You're paying for the geometry as much as the metallurgy.
Where a cheap padlock is genuinely fine
I'll say it plainly: there are plenty of situations where a £20 padlock is the right call.
- A garden gate that doesn't lead anywhere a burglar wants to go. If it's just keeping the dog in, grade 1 is fine.
- A communal bin store or recycling area in a Chalvey or Britwell flat complex, where the goal is keeping the door shut, not deterring theft.
- A luggage lock on a suitcase going into the hold. Airline staff have a master key anyway; you're mostly stopping opportunists at a carousel.
- A low-value allotment shed with nothing in it worth taking. A padlock here is partly about not making things too easy, and partly signalling that someone does come back.
- Temporarily securing a gate while you wait for a proper hasp and a better lock to arrive.
In these cases, spending £80 on a Sold Secure Gold closed-shackle lock would be disproportionate. The threat doesn't justify it.
Where it is false economy
Now for the bit people need to hear.
Your garden shed in Cippenham or Wexham, if it contains a decent lawnmower, power tools, a bike, or garden machinery, is a genuine target. Sheds are broken into constantly across SL1 and SL2, partly because they're not alarmed, partly because they're out of sight from the street, and partly because tools are easy to sell.
A £20 open-shackle padlock on a shed hasp can be defeated in under ten seconds with a cheap bolt cropper. The lock didn't fail because it was low quality. It failed because you brought a grade 1 lock to a grade 3 problem.
The same logic applies to:
- Garages on Manor Park or Upton estates used as workshops or storing a second vehicle.
- Commercial yards off the Trading Estate, where plant, cable, or stock is stored overnight.
- Landlord storage areas in HMOs across Slough, where a communal padlock is the only barrier between tenants' bikes and a side street.
- Any gate securing a rear access passage. Rear entries are a preferred route for residential burglars in Slough, especially in the older terraced streets around Chalvey and Salt Hill.
For these, you want a minimum of Sold Secure Silver, ideally Gold. Closed shackle. Paired with a proper close-shackle hasp, not the standard open-loop type that gets cut through even when the padlock survives. The hasp is as important as the lock. A £70 padlock on a £4 hasp is still a weak system.
The hardened shackle claim
Almost every padlock on a budget rack says "hardened steel shackle." Technically, many of them aren't lying. Case-hardened shackles are relatively cheap to produce. The hardening resists a file or a hacksaw reasonably well.
What it doesn't tell you is the diameter of that shackle, the depth of hardening, or whether the body behind it is equally robust. A 6 mm shackle that's hardened is still a 6 mm shackle. Proper bolt croppers laugh at it. The Sold Secure and CEN testing processes measure actual cutting resistance under load, which is a much more honest number than "hardened steel" on a cardboard sleeve.
What to actually buy
If you want a starting point:
- Low-risk, don't care much: Any branded grade 1 or 2 from a known maker (Squire, Abus). Around £15 to £25.
- Garden shed with tools: Closed-shackle, Sold Secure Silver minimum. Squire SS50CS, Abus 83/45. Budget £35 to £55. Add a proper close-shackle hasp.
- Garage, commercial storage, rear access gate: Sold Secure Gold. Consider Squire SS65CS, Abus Granit 37/60, or Mul-T-Lock C-13. Budget £60 to £100. The hasp and fixings matter just as much.
One last thing. Where you fit the hasp is as important as which padlock you buy. Coach bolts that go right through the door or frame, with a backing plate inside, are far harder to rip out than woodscrews. A thief who can't beat the lock will go for the fixings instead.
If you're in the SL1 to SL9 postcode area and you're not sure whether your current setup would hold up, Rapid Response covers Slough and surrounding areas including Langley, Cippenham, Burnham, Datchet, and Colnbrook. Average arrival is under 30 minutes where we can manage it. We'll give you a straight answer on what you've got and what it would take to improve it. Pricing is confirmed on the call, before we do anything.
Priya Nair, Security and standards specialist
Priya is the one who reads the test reports. She handles the survey work, the insurance questions and anything where the British Standard actually matters, and she will happily explain why the number on the box is not the number that counts.
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