Fixed-rate mortgages are offered in the UK, but they are only fixed at a good rate for a short period of time (maybe 2-5 years) before they go up to an unreasonable rate, which would force you to renegotiate the mortgage to get the new prevailing rate at that time.
Well, a series of shorter term fixed rates. Which I guess makes it variable over the entire lifetime of the mortgage, but a bit more predictable than a true variable rate.
You can get 10 year fixes, but they are of course more expensive than shorter term fixes.