Some of the benefits of owning a generic domain name are

Respect and market leadership
Ownership of a recognisable generic domain name gives you instant credibility and makes your company look more professional.
Most of the world's top companies own the best generic domain names in their relative industries. Businesses such as these are some of the leaders, or indeed the leader, in their line of work.

Internet traffic
Owning a generic domain name relevant to your business will get more visitors to your site by attracting 'type-in' traffic. This is users who navigate to a web site by typing the generic name into their web browser.
'Otherwise known as direct navigation traffic, this will occur naturally with a good generic domain name.
This traffic is in addition to traffic from Search Engines and has the advantage of being 100 percent free.

Investment
The values of generic domain names have been exponentially increasing during recent years. A good domain name is always a saleable product and many people have seen exceptional returns on the investment in domains.

.co.uk benefits
a  co.uk extension says to people that you in the UK, especially when people are looking for services and products to purchase directly.