I'm reading 'The Water Jump' by David Beaty at the moment (the history of trans Atlantic flight), and very interesting it is. He points to UK necessarily concentrating on military aviation in WW2 while the US continued the development of civil types such as the DC4 and Conny.
Even after the war, for many years, we were hampered by lack of investment in a civil airliner capable of comfortable pressurised trans Atlantic flight, relying on Lancastrians, and the wartime US-built Liberators. BOAC eventually managed to buy some US aeroplanes such as the Stratocruiser. The Tudor was a failure, the Britannia of course came too late, and the Comet 1 had its well known serious problems with metal fatigue. It was the late '50s before there was a civil UK contender on the North Atlanic.