Don’t know about iPads in particular but I sometimes find John Lewis discounting Apple kit these days. You need to be careful to ensure you are comparing like-for-like products, but that’s probably more black and white with iPads, compared with Macs.
You also get a longer warranty, though I’m not sure how useful that is without a high street shop nearby to return a faulty item.
Of course, you’d then have to sort out a Sim separately. I have Vodafone PAYG for my iPhone, a £10 ‘bundle’ every month gets me more data than I know what to do with (6GB I think).
