£1200 is a good amount of money, do you need it to be portable? If you wanted a compact multi-purpose machine that can also do some gaming then the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Pro X is a good machine:
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/yoga/yoga-slim-series/Yoga-Slim-7-Pro-X-Gen-7-14″-AMD-/p/LEN101Y0020?orgRef=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-fWHF2iQyE
£1,169.99 get's you a AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS CPU (8 cores/16 threads), 32GB of RAM and an Nvidia 3050 GPU. It's SSD is small at only 512GB but it is upgradable so you could add a 2TB for example at some point in the future. This is one of my favourite ones because it has a very well made all aluminium chassis, a high quality screen and it's very powerful for something so small.
A very popular compact gaming notebook is the Asus G14:
https://www.ebuyer.com/1287037-asus-rog-zephryrus-g14-ryzen-7-16gb-1tb-ssd-rtx-3050ti-14-ga401qe-k2206t
This one has last years CPU (difference is small) but it's still very powerful and it's a bit cheaper as a result. Those are two good quality compact performance notebooks.
If you want something larger more gaming focused then I quite like the Asus Tuf laptops in the budget and mid level category. The Asus Tuf Dash F15 get's you a 12th gen i5, 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD and a more powerful Nvidia 3060 for £1,100.
https://www.currys.co.uk/products/asus-tuf-dash-f15-15.6-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i7-rtx-3060-1-tb-ssd-10234448.html?istCompanyId=bec25c7e-cbcd-460d-81d5-a25372d2e3d7&istFeedId=4d7eb93e-055f-499d-8ee5-1cdcc50d67d1&istItemId=pqmlpqxwm&istBid=t&srcid=198&cmpid=ppc~gg~0073 (Shopping Ads) Gaming Laptop - Brand Intel Sept19~new ad group 29/10/21~Exact~71700000057048167~&mctag=gg_goog_7904&kwid=GOOGLE&device=c&ds_kids=92700071636724027&tgtid=0073 (Shopping Ads) Gaming Laptop - Brand Intel Sept19&gclid=Cj0KCQjw166aBhDEARIsAMEyZh4sXoYVXmZuP-0jDepWrfS7SrV3wAEDp7fsMClSeDqHwvyoappj8bkaAo3XEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds drift boss
That's going to be a step up in gaming performance compared to the previous two machines. It is a mostly plastic build but build quality is good, I would have said Asus are among the more sturdily built gaming laptops in this price range. The trade off here is it's not as compact and portable as the previous two machines. For more budget orientated gaming machines the Asus Tuf A15 and Acer Nitro 5 are worth considering.
If you have a local Curries near you then it's worth having a look to see what they've got and if there's anything that catches your eye. They might have the Asus, I'm not sure they would have the Yoga Slim Pro X though.
For laptop reviews I would recommend Notebookcheck:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Reviews.55.0.html
And
In terms of where to purchase from, then Curries and Ebuyer.com would be where I would start for the retailers. When it comes to the big manufactures like Lenovo and Dell ect.. sometimes it's easier to buy directly from them if you want a specific model.