Your best bet is to go with the top engines/directories in this order:
Yahoo UK
Google/uk version uses global db, filtering results.
AVUK uses separate db to .com
Fast
ODP
Ink delivered through hotbot uk and many portals.
Lycos (directory)
Excite
Looksmart UK
UK Plus
If you take a look through the UK & Ireland forum you'll find lots of other SE's and directories too.
On reflection, MSN IS important and you can get in through Ink or Looksmart. I'd still stand by the importance of Fast as it is serving more data every day.
Ask Jeeves, again, Yahoo listings will help there. Remember, AJ in the UK is ask.co.uk [ask.co.uk].
As a portal, yes, AJ and Freeserve (Goto/Ink) are important.
[google.com...] 152
[search.msn.co.uk...] 86
[excite.co.uk...] 59
[uk.google.yahoo.com...] 52
[google.co.uk...] 48
[search.msn.co.uk...] 30
[google.yahoo.com...] 28
[search.uk.altavista.com...] 28
[search.msn.com...] 12
[search.msn.com...] 10
[ifind.freeserve.net...] 10
[bushinternet.com...] 6
[ifind.freeserve.com...] 6
[ifind.freeserve.net...] 4
[auto.search.msn.com...] 4
[altavista.com...] 4
[btclickfree.co.uk...] 2
[hotbot.lycos.co.uk...] 2
[mirago.co.uk...] 2
[alta-vista.com...] 2
[altavista.digital.com...] 2
[search.com...] 2
[lycos.com...] 2
[search.ukmax.com...] 2
[scoot.yahoo.co.uk...] 2
[google.com...] 2
[synd.looksmart.co.uk...] 2
[google...] 2
[search.aol.co.uk...] 2
[goo.ne.jp...] 2
[search.dogpile.com...] 2
[aolsearch.aol.com...] 2
[pageseeker.com...] 2
[search.metacrawler.com...] 2
hth...
Edited by: nicebloke