13.9M UK Homes And Businesses Can Get Full Fibre But Have Not Yet Ordered It

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13.9 million UK homes and businesses can order full fibre but have not yet connected: 26.3m premises passed, 12.4m connected, take-up 47%. Source: Ofcom Connected Nations, January 2026 data. Chart: UK Broadband in Numbers, BroadbandSwitch Data Lab, C

Full fibre take-up by council, January 2026: Hull highest at 78%, Kensington and Chelsea lowest at 19%, UK 47%. Five of the top ten are in Northern Ireland. Source: Ofcom open data. Chart: UK Broadband in Numbers, BroadbandSwitch Data Lab, CC BY 4.0

Broadband complaints to Ofcom per 100,000 customers, Q4 2010 to Q2 2026: 6 in Q2 2026, level with the record low. Virgin Media had the fewest (4). Source: Ofcom, 26 October 2026. Chart: UK Broadband in Numbers, BroadbandSwitch Data Lab, CC BY 4.0.

Six of the 37 figures in UK Broadband in Numbers: full fibre 82%, gigabit 89%, take-up 47%, complaints 6 per 100,000, out of contract 28%, no decent line 39,000. Source: Ofcom. BroadbandSwitch Data Lab, CC BY 4.0.

UK Broadband in Numbers on desktop and phone: 37 UK broadband figures from Ofcom, the ONS and other named sources, updated monthly, with local figures for all 361 councils. Free at broadbandswitch/reports/uk-broadband-statistics.

UK Broadband in Numbers, a free monthly tracker from BroadbandSwitch, brings 37 sourced figures together, with full fibre take-up for all 361 councils

Every one of these numbers is public, but they are spread across dozens of reports. We have put them in one place, with the source and date on every figure, so anyone can check them.” - Dr Alex J. Martin-Smith, founder, BroadbandSwitchLONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, October 28, 2026 /EINPresswire / -- (BroadbandSwitch UK Data Labs ) | 13.9 million UK homes and businesses could order full fibre broadband today but have not yet done so, according to Ofcom data brought together in UK Broadband in Numbers, a new free monthly tracker from the BroadbandSwitch Data Lab.

Full fibre now reaches 26.3 million premises, and 12.4 million of them have a live connection, a take-up rate of 47% (Ofcom, January 2026 data). Take-up varies widely across the country, from 78% in Hull to 19% in Kensington and Chelsea. Five of the ten council areas with the highest take-up are in Northern Ireland, while Leeds stands at 50%, Glasgow at 43% and Birmingham at 37%. The council figures come from Ofcom's own data, not a survey.

UK Broadband in Numbers sets out 37 figures on coverage, take-up, speeds, prices and service in one place. Each figure shows its source, the date of the data, how it was worked out and when it will next change. The tracker draws on Ofcom, the Office for National Statistics, Building Digital UK, Openreach and other named sources, and it is updated on the first working day of every month.

Other figures in the tracker include:

- 82% of UK homes can order full fibre and 89% can get gigabit-capable broadband (Ofcom, January 2026 data).
- Broadband complaints to Ofcom held at 6 per 100,000 customers in April to June 2026, level with the record low set in the first three months of the year. Virgin Media had the fewest at 4, and BT, EE, TalkTalk and Vodafone the most at 7 each (Ofcom, published 26 October 2026).
- 28% of fixed broadband customers were out of contract on at least one service at the end of June 2025 (Ofcom).
- Premises unable to get a decent broadband connection of 10 Mbps fell from 1.1 million in 2017 to 39,000 (Ofcom, January 2026 data).
- More than 3.4 million people had started a switch through One Touch Switch by 3 September 2026, two years after it launched (TOTSCo data, published by Ofcom).
- The average home used 583 GB of data a month in July 2025, up from 531 GB a year earlier (Ofcom).

Dr Alex J. Martin-Smith, founder of BroadbandSwitch, said: "The industry has done a remarkable job of building full fibre, and quickly. The next job is helping people use it. When take-up is 78% in Hull and 19% in Kensington and Chelsea, it is clear that getting the fibre into the street is only half the story."

On prices, two official measures point in different directions, and the tracker shows both side by side. After inflation, Ofcom finds the average price of a 300 to 999 Mbps connection fell from £68 to £37 a month between 2020 and 2025, at July 2025 prices. The ONS index of internet access prices, which is not adjusted for inflation, has risen 54% since January 2020, against 33% for all consumer prices. The first measure tracks what a fast connection costs to buy; the second tracks what happens to the price of the same service over time.

Dr Martin-Smith added: "More than one in four broadband customers is out of contract, and Ofcom finds that people on a current deal pay £7 to £9 a month less, on average, than those who are not. Switching is far simpler than it used to be: under One Touch Switch, the new provider arranges the move."

The tracker is free to use and to cite. It includes a PDF edition, spreadsheet, JSON and plain-text downloads, a copy-ready citation on every figure, a regional explorer for all 361 council areas and a public corrections log. Households can check whether full fibre has reached their street with the site's full fibre availability checker. UK Broadband in Numbers is in Beta until 1 January 2027, and readers can send feedback through a form on the page. The next update is due on Tuesday 1 December 2026.

Notes to editors

About the tracker. UK Broadband in Numbers is published by the BroadbandSwitch Data Lab Team at and updated on the first working day of each month.

How the figures are worked out. Full fibre take-up is Ofcom's measure of live full fibre connections as a share of all premises that can order full fibre, for January 2026; the 13.9 million is the difference between Ofcom's 26.3 million premises passed and 12.4 million connected. Council figures are from Ofcom's Connected Nations open data for 361 local authority areas. Complaints are complaints made to Ofcom per 100,000 customers; Ofcom treats differences of less than one as comparable. Ofcom's speed-tier price is a weighted average monthly price of standalone broadband, adjusted to July 2025 prices; the ONS index is not adjusted for inflation. The tracker's monthly deals snapshot covers deals listed on BroadbandSwitch, not every UK provider, and is kept separate from the official figures.

Licence. The Data Lab's compilation, charts and images are published under CC BY 4.0, credited as "UK Broadband in Numbers, BroadbandSwitch Data Lab". Ofcom figures contain public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. ONS figures: Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0.

Interviews. Dr Alex J. Martin-Smith is available for interview. Contact details are with this release.

References

Office for National Statistics. (2026, October 21). Consumer price inflation time series [Data set].

Ofcom. (2025, November 19). Connected Nations 2025 [Report].

Ofcom. (2026a, February 26). Pricing and consumer engagement 2025 [Report].

Ofcom. (2026b, May 13). Connected Nations update: Spring 2026 [Report].

Ofcom. (2026c, September 12). Around 3.5 million Brits hit switch amidst cost of living concerns [Press release].

Ofcom. (2026d, October 26). Telecoms and pay-TV complaints: Q2 (April to June) 2026 [Data set].

About BroadbandSwitch

BroadbandSwitch is a UK broadband comparison service run by Upleashed Limited, a company registered in the Isle of Man. It launched in April 2026 and lists deals in price order, cheapest first. Its Data Lab publishes free, sourced research on the UK broadband market, including reports on the switch-off of the copper phone network, market consolidation and full fibre take-up. Like other comparison services, it may earn a commission when someone switches through it.

Alex Martin-Smith
Upleashed® limited
+44 330 122 1223
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UK broadband quiz: 3 questions on full fibre, prices and contracts, answered with Ofcom data from UK Broadband in Numbers

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13.9m UK Homes and Businesses Can Get Full Fibre but Have Not Yet Ordered It News Provided By Upleashed® limited October 28, 2026, 08:30 GMT Share This Article Distribution channels: Business & Economy, IT Industry, Real Estate & Property Management, Technology, Telecommunications

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