UK broadband statistics
According to the Office of Communications Connected Nations Spring 2026 extract reviewed in August 2026 against our methodology, England alone accounts for 27,093,888 premises in the coverage corpus.
Data updated August 2026
81.0% of UK premises have full-fibre availability in this Ofcom Connected Nations extract (32,493,694 premises across 361 local authorities). Gigabit-capable coverage is 87.8%. Northern Ireland leads the four-nation board at 94.0%; Scotland sits at 74.0%.
- 87.8% gigabit-capable
- 72 local authorities at or above 90% full-fibre
- Ofcom Connected Nations August 2026
Key findings
Standalone, citable statements from the linked Ofcom extract. Free to reuse with attribution to PlainBroadband (CC BY 4.0; cite the page). Underlying Ofcom tables remain under the Open Government Licence.
- 32,493,694 premises sit in the Ofcom Connected Nations extract across 361 local authorities, 650 Westminster constituencies, and 4 UK nations. Coverage figures below are percentages of those premises, not subscriptions.
- 81.0% of UK premises in this extract have full-fibre (FTTP) availability, premises-weighted across all 361 local authorities. That is availability, not take-up.
- 87.8% of UK premises are gigabit-capable on the same extract, 6.8 percentage points above full-fibre. Gigabit includes full-fibre plus other gigabit-capable technologies Ofcom counts in that field.
- 99.6% KINGSTON UPON HULL, CITY OF has the highest full-fibre share among local authorities with at least 10,000 premises (131,287 premises in this extract). Rankings use the same premises floor so a handful of properties cannot top the list.
- 12.0% NA H-EILEANAN SIAR has the lowest full-fibre share on that same 10,000-premises floor (17,811 premises). The floor matches the rankings tables; unfloored corpus ranks can differ for very small authorities.
- 20.0pp is the full-fibre gap between Northern Ireland (94.0%) and Scotland (74.0%) on the four-nation board. Nation figures are Ofcom nation aggregates, not averages of local-authority percentages.
- 72 local authorities have full-fibre at or above 90% of premises; 8 sit below 50%. These are unfloored counts of all 361 authorities in the extract.
- 0.1% of UK premises cannot receive decent broadband from a fixed line or fixed-wireless network in this extract (premises-weighted across local authorities). This availability measure is not a count of households seeking, or eligible for, a USO request.
Full-fibre by UK nation
Ofcom nation aggregates, percentage of premises with full-fibre (FTTP) availability. August 2026.
How to read these numbers
Availability is not take-up. Full-fibre, gigabit, and fixed/FWA availability shares use different technology definitions on the same premises base. Local-authority leader and lagger lines use the rankings premises floor (10,000 premises) so a small authority cannot dominate the comparison. Nation figures are Ofcom nation rows, not means of local-authority percentages. See methodology for how each measure is sourced.
Download the local-authority snapshot: Ofcom Connected Nations statistics CSV (CC BY 4.0 for this derived file; Ofcom source tables remain OGL).
This page draws directly on Ofcom Connected Nations coverage tables. No figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of August 2026.