Gigabit Broadband Availability Across the UK (2026)

The National Picture

Gigabit-capable broadband, connections capable of delivering download speeds of at least 1,000 Mbit/s, reached 87.8% of UK premises by the reference date of Ofcom Connected Nations Spring 2026. That figure represents roughly 27 million premises with access to speeds that were, only a decade ago, the exclusive preserve of specialist business circuits. The pace of build has accelerated substantially since 2020, driven primarily by the rollout of full-fibre (FTTP) networks by Openreach, Virgin Media O2 and a cohort of alternative network providers (altnets).

Gigabit-capable coverage is not the same as full-fibre coverage, though the two are increasingly aligned. Virgin Media O2's coaxial cable network can deliver gigabit speeds via DOCSIS 3.1 technology without requiring a fibre-to-the-premises build. This means that local authorities with high Virgin Media penetration, particularly urban areas in England - may show gigabit coverage meaningfully above their full-fibre percentage. Conversely, in predominantly rural authorities served only by Openreach copper infrastructure, the gap between gigabit and full-fibre is narrow: neither technology is widely available.

Across all 361 local authorities, 173 authorities have reached or exceeded 90% gigabit-capable coverage, while 5 authorities still have fewer than half of their premises in scope.

Gigabit Coverage by Nation

The four UK nations show divergent gigabit profiles, reflecting their different geography, population density, and the commercial investment decisions that follow from these. The table below uses live data from our database.

England's Cable Advantage

England's gigabit percentage runs several points above its full-fibre figure. The gap reflects Virgin Media O2's cable network, which is concentrated in English towns and cities. In many urban English authorities, premises can access gigabit speeds via cable even where full-fibre has not yet been built. As Openreach and the altnets continue their FTTP build, England's full-fibre and gigabit figures will converge, but for now, cable delivers meaningful gigabit availability that pure fibre counts would understate.

Northern Ireland: Full-Fibre Drives Gigabit

In Northern Ireland, gigabit coverage tracks closely with full-fibre coverage. This is because Northern Ireland has very limited Virgin Media cable infrastructure: nearly all gigabit-capable premises there are served by full-fibre networks, principally Openreach's FTTP build accelerated by Project Stratum. The result is that Northern Ireland's gigabit percentage is high, but it is almost entirely fibre-based, a structurally cleaner infrastructure position than England's mixed fibre-plus-cable picture.

Scotland and Wales: The Rural Constraint

Scotland and Wales have the lowest gigabit coverage among the four nations. Both countries contain large rural areas where the business case for commercial gigabit build, whether fibre or cable, is poor. Highland Scotland and mid-Wales have some of the lowest population densities in the UK, and the cost per premise of building gigabit infrastructure in these areas is multiples of the cost in an urban setting. Public subsidy programmes, including Project Gigabit and the Scottish R100 initiative, are working to close this gap, but progress is necessarily slower than in areas where commercial operators lead.

Top 10 Local Authorities by Gigabit Coverage

The local authorities with the highest gigabit-capable premises share in Ofcom's Spring 2026 data:

Areas with the Lowest Gigabit Coverage

The ten local authorities with the lowest gigabit-capable coverage are overwhelmingly rural and remote. These areas represent the hardest-to-serve parts of the UK, often characterised by scattered settlements, complex terrain, and long distances from exchange infrastructure. In many of these communities, even superfast broadband (≥30 Mbit/s) is not universally available.

The Relationship Between Gigabit and Full-Fibre

At a national level, gigabit coverage exceeds full-fibre coverage, the gap is accounted for by cable infrastructure that can deliver gigabit speeds without a full-fibre build. However, this relationship varies significantly by authority type. In urban English authorities with strong Virgin Media cable penetration, gigabit coverage can be 10 to 15 percentage points above full-fibre. In rural Scottish or Welsh authorities, where cable is absent, the two figures are effectively the same.

The policy significance is that headline gigabit figures can overstate the structural quality of an area's broadband infrastructure. A gigabit connection via cable is a genuine upgrade compared to legacy copper ADSL, but it does not carry the same long-term capacity and resilience as a full-fibre connection, which requires no active equipment between the exchange and the premise. As the UK moves towards the 2030s, full-fibre, not cable gigabit, is the infrastructure standard that will define competitive advantage.

Data Source and Methodology

All figures in this article are drawn directly from our database, which ingests Ofcom's Connected Nations Spring 2026 (January 2026, reference r1) local authority data. UK-wide weighted averages are computed from authority-level premises data at query time. No values have been interpolated, projected, or modified. See our full methodology for details.