@Megawatt as already said, in the UK only the supply authority (DNO) is allowed to bond N & E together for various safety reasons, largely to do with the consequences of an open 'neutral' making metalwork live, and to limit spurious current circulating around the earthing structures of multiple buildings, etc.
It is common in the UK for the bond point to be at the supply cut-out and that is called TN-C-S here (Common N & E to the supply point, Separate after) but within any normal installation N & E will not be bonded together. In this case the DNO is expected to have multiple low-impedance earth rods at points along the conductor (hence the PME name given for protective multiple earth). That is not always successful, and there are PME faults putting folk at risk disturbingly often across the UK.
The main advantage is to save conductor costs over the traditional TN-S system by not running separate N & E to everywhere (secondary advantage is usually a lower supply fault impedance Ze so easier to achieve fast disconnection by fuse or MCB).
The main disadvantage is the PME open-circuit fault consequences that are comparable to the TN-C risk of metalwork going live and high currents flowing in to anything bonded to true Earth (e.g. metal water pipes, etc).
There was talk of having UK properties being fitted with earth rods for TN-C-S as they are built, etc (which I think is similar to the USA arrangement) but they would go to the 'E' after the DNO point in any case (which is not isolated by incoming switch, etc) and definitely not to N. But that has not made it in to our regulations yet.
Of course with a TT setup you only have the rod(s) for earth and so in practice you need RCD protection for all circuits to have any real hope of disconnecting on a fault as it is really hard to get below ten-ish ohms for a couple of rods, and you really need one ohm or below in many cases.
"There was talk of UK properties being fitted with earth rods for TNCS as they are built. But that has not made it into our regulations yet"
It never will, it contravenes the ESQCR (real) regulations.