Ookla 2026 Study Finds Starlink UK Broadband Speeds Poor vs Europe

Internet benchmarking firm Ookla, which operates the popular Speedtest.net broadband connection testing website and app, has published a new study that examines the performance of Starlink’s (SpaceX) LEO satellite broadband service across the world. Overall, performance in the UK has improved, but we continue to lag most of Europe.

Starlink currently has around 9,600 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (c.6,150 are v2 / GEN2 variants) – mostly at altitudes of between c.340-525km. Residential customers in the UK usually pay from £35 a month for the ‘Residential 100Mbps’ unlimited data plan (kit price may vary due to different offers), which also promises uploads of c.15-35Mbps and low latency connectivity. Faster packages exist at greater cost, while more restrictive (data capped) options also exist for roaming users (e.g. £50 per month for 100 GigaBytes of data).

According to Ookla’s new study, customers of Starlink’s service in the UK received an average median download speed of 106.63Mbps during Q3 2025 (up from 87.06Mbps almost a year ago). The only other European countries slower than this were Denmark 90.93Mbps, Albania 94.97Mbps and Bulgaria 38.3Mbps.

By comparison, Ireland scored 155.23Mbps, France 132.01Mbps, Germany 123.68Mbps, Norway 142.68Mbps, Italy 138.12Mbps and Spain got 142.76Mbps. Not to mention the USA on 129.61Mbps, Canada 113.13Mbps and Japan with 108.67Mbps.

The performance of Starlink’s network does of course vary due to all sorts of complex factors, such as in terms of how much radio spectrum frequency they’re allowed to harness by regulators in each country, the capabilities of any nearby ground stations with Starlink kit, the consumers own choice of package (Starlink’s packages, prices and limitations vary between countries) and any localised issues of network congestion etc.

Ookla also notes that the United Kingdom is estimated to be Starlink’s 11th largest market, at least in terms of the total global test samples that the company has recorded (i.e. accounting for 3.5% of all global Starlink speed tests). By comparison, the USA tops the table on 22.5% and the next closest entry is Mexico on just 5.7%.

Sadly, the full report doesn’t include any further detail on the UK’s performance (uploads, latency etc.), but there are lots of figures for other countries to dig into if you’re feeling so inclined.