It used to be much harder to get a bare UK domain. Restrictions were loosened in the early 2010s, with priority given to those who already owned a domain that was second level .co.uk etc.
Easy to come by though. I own one. My main concern was when giving email addresses over the phone that people would automatically put .co.uk, but so far that hasn't actually happened!
I have a similar problem: For purely vanity reasons, I have a .co e-mail. Whenever giving it over the phone, I say something like "blah blah blah, dot co; no UK, just dot co". So far this has worked, but -- along with my difficult to spell domain -- I somewhat regret my decision!
