I think on balance I would do it - but bear in mind there's a whole world of difference between being a lone parent with good support, and with no support. So in fact it might depend on circumstance. Some thinking points:
You will of course need to be self sufficient and it will be hard to cope with having to support yourself and a child, especially if you have to work full time to do so and you don't have family childcare. I don't think that childcare is damaging or anything like that, but if you have to have a child in nursery or whatever from pretty much 8am-7pm 5 days a week, that is going to take an extreme toll on your relationship and also I just think it's hard for them to cope with. The best nursery (etc) in the world is not home and you can't relax quite the same as at home. It can be stressful if your home, car, etc are insecure and all of that responsibility is just on you. If you're going to be living hand to mouth to feed yourselves and it's not a situation of cutting down work to spend more time with the child and you can't just up your hours in a tight patch for example, I think that money would end up dominating and it is so so stressful to live like that. Yes there's a safety net of benefits in the UK but I don't know that I would plan to be reliant on it, especially as their future is fairly uncertain.
So - sort of related but on a different note, I think that a support network is also invaluable. Family who might not provide regular childcare but who will occasionally take the LO off your hands to give you a break, especially people who might be willing to do the odd whole weekend, will absolutely save your life. It is so draining to be physically responsible for a small person 100% of the time, it doesn't really go away when they're in bed, when you're at work, or when you have a night out, because you're always on standby and on a timer. You can't just go out and care not where you end up because you have to keep checking your watch and go and relieve the babysitter at midnight (I always felt a bit like Cinderella! :)) I don't know if it's something which appeals to you anyway, but you can't just decide to make a stupid decision on a whim any more like taking drugs for the hell of it, hooking up with somebody random, booking a last minute trip away, (you can do this to an extent) or blow the month's money on something stupidly expensive and live off custard creams and value beans for the rest of the month. You always have to be thinking ahead and thinking of the child and how you will keep things normal and stable for them even when there is some disaster.
You'll want friends who have or have had children, because although there are some amazing parts to being a parent, I'm sure that you know there are also really hard parts as well and trying to offload onto people who aren't parents doesn't really work. Sometimes you just need to phone up a friend and say "Three year olds are arseholes aren't they?" and have them totally agree rather than secretly looking up the number for social services 
Plus, friends who have children understand the Cinderella thing and other such issues and won't think badly of you when you aren't able to put them first any more. If all of your friends are childfree then you will become isolated from them. That's not so bad when you have a partner and maybe a few friends with children or you're meeting new people through having DC but it would be really, really lonely if they are all you've got.
You have to be fairly happy with the fact that relationships will be far harder and more complicated. Are you happy to potentially remain single, or would you end up resenting the child if somebody who was almost-but-not-quite-right-now slipped away because of circumstance? It really changes the rules of dating IME. The same goes for careers, really. Of course having DC will affect career planning whether you're in a relationship or not, but at least when you have another adult around there is wriggle room so you can to some extent share the childcare burden and cover each other, whereas you'll be on your own and forced to either turn things down or constantly juggle favours from family/friends/nursery/babysitting agencies. Expect, BTW, for childcare to cost more than the basic cost of covering the time that you work, because there will be sick days, holidays, totally uncoverable days which will cost you a lot extra (like budgeting for the bus or a car, occasionally you'll still need to take a taxi). You'll need either an extremely understanding employer or a sizeable budget for such things.
Lastly an emergency plan - Are you comfortable enough with your neighbours that you could turn to them in an emergency or know that they would check in if they didn't see you for a day or two, (or even friends who would check in if you didn't post on FB or whatever really) do you have anybody who can help you out when you're ill, if you had to go into hospital, if you had to go away for work. And what if you died? Do you have somebody who could look after the child or would they have to go into foster care?
Sorry to be morbid - and yes there are definitely perks to being a lone parent, in some ways I have actually preferred it to being married! But all worth thinking about IMO. Good luck!