May 2026 UK Contract Progress of the Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout
The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency has released their May 2026 update on the delivery progress of contracts awarded under their £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme. The update reveals that some 256,680 contracted premises (up from 250,000 in April 2026) have so far been covered out of a planned total of 837,340 (31% complete).
The figures in this update are not directly comparable to the figures published in BDUK’s general quarterly statistics releases. This is because today’s report tracks the number of contracted premises to which a supplier has delivered a gigabit-capable connection under the main Gigabit Infrastructure Subsidy (GIS) programme, whereas the general statistics also include gigabit premises delivered via any public / BDUK subsidy (i.e. that includes other schemes too, like gigabit vouchers and contracts that pre-date Project Gigabit).
So far, most of the country’s gigabit-capable broadband coverage has been delivered by commercial deployments (predominantly focused on urban and semi-urban areas), while Project Gigabit focuses on the final bits that they fail to reach (usually rural areas). The project has already committed most of its budget up to 2030, but there are still some contracts yet to be awarded and others that have been scaled-back or switched suppliers (e.g. here, here, here, here and here).
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Otherwise, it’s worth remembering that these contracts were all awarded at different times and are thus at very different stages of development (some started several years apart). A few of the listed contracts have already completed their delivery, such as Wessex Internet’s build for North Dorset and GoFibre’s roll-outs for County Durham and North Northumberland. Meanwhile, others, such as Openreach’s new contract for Cheshire (here), were only added in the April 2026 update.
The biggest change this time around is CityFibre’s significant reduction in planned build (here), which played a major role in slashing the total contracted premises figure from 1,047,200 last month to 837,340 now (-209,860 premises).
On top of that we’ve also noted some quirks this time around, such as for CityFibre’s Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes contract, where the already ‘built’ premises figure has gone from 4,570 in April to 4,150 in May. BDUK states that 420 premises missing from this will be “re-added at a later date“. The Freedom Fibre contract for North Shropshire suffered an even bigger monthly fall of -2,140 and BDUK said the same about that, albeit without providing any context for the change.
As previously reported, CityFibre’s contract for Nottinghamshire and West Lincolnshire (Lot 10) has also been removed from the contracted list this month as part of their recent change. BDUK are now working to find an alternative solution.
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Finally, Openreach have modified their Call Off 1 (CO1) contract again, which increases its value by +£5.23m to total £159.26m and adds an additional +5,352 premises to the build plan (total contracted is now 60,176).
Project Gigabit – Contracted Premises and Built Premises by Contract (May 2026)
| Contract | Supplier | Contracted Premises | Built Contracted Premises (May 2026) | Monthly Change | % Complete |
| Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes | CityFibre | 5,890 | 4,150 | -420 | 70% |
| Bucks, Herts and East of Berks | CityFibre | 6,090 | 3,640 | 0 | 60% |
| CO1 Lancashire, West Berkshire, Staffordshire, Surrey, Hertfordshire, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire | Openreach | 60,180 | 14,460 | 0 | 24% |
| CO2 Devon, Mid Wales and South East Wales | Openreach | 41,140 | 9,210 | 0 | 22% |
| CO3 North Herefordshire, North Wales, Shropshire and South West Wales | Openreach | 65,120 | 1,240 | 180 | 2% |
| CO4 South Devon, Mid Devon and North Somerset | Openreach | 37,110 | 3,150 | 310 | 8% |
| CO5 Essex and North East England | Openreach | 35,300 | 880 | 300 | 2% |
| CO6 Rest of Scotland | Openreach | 77,640 | 3,680 | 0 | 5% |
| CO7 Worcestershire | Openreach | 22,600 | 120 | 0 | 1% |
| CO8 Cheshire | Openreach | 18,460 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| Cambridgeshire | CityFibre | 18,230 | 10,850 | 1,070 | 60% |
| Central Cornwall | Wildanet | 6,940 | 6,940 | 0 | 100% |
| Cornwall and Isle of Scilly | Wildanet | 14,430 | 3,540 | 80 | 25% |
| Cumbria | Fibrus | 53,540 | 33,330 | 930 | 62% |
| Derbyshire | Connect Fibre | 12,050 | 1,200 | 0 | 10% |
| Dorset and South Somerset | Wessex internet | 19,560 | 3,840 | 420 | 20% |
| Durham | GoFibre | 4,440 | 4,440 | 0 | 100% |
| East Gloucestershire | Gigaclear | 3,550 | 1,800 | 370 | 51% |
| East and West Sussex | CityFibre | 12,760 | 2,970 | 0 | 23% |
| Hampshire | CityFibre | 29,420 | 6,770 | 770 | 23% |
| Kent | CityFibre | 8,750 | 2,320 | 0 | 27% |
| Leicestershire and Warwickshire | CityFibre | 22,480 | 10,100 | 120 | 45% |
| Lincolnshire and East Riding | Quickline | 47,800 | 19,050 | 1,390 | 40% |
| New Forest | Wessex internet | 12,730 | 10,250 | 240 | 81% |
| Norfolk | CityFibre | 32,670 | 12,510 | 130 | 38% |
| North Dorset | Wessex internet | 6,480 | 6,480 | 0 | 100% |
| North East Staffordshire | Connect Fibre | 5,960 | 2,080 | 90 | 35% |
| North Oxfordshire | Gigaclear | 4,180 | 3,690 | 160 | 88% |
| North Shropshire | Freedom Fibre | 3,410 | 1,270 | -2,140 | 37% |
| Northern North Yorkshire | Quickline | 33,810 | 10,240 | 890 | 30% |
| Northumberland | GoFibre | 3,830 | 3,830 | 0 | 100% |
| South Oxfordshire | Gigaclear | 5,030 | 3,140 | 130 | 62% |
| South West Cornwall | Wildanet | 6,400 | 6,400 | 0 | 100% |
| South Wiltshire | Wessex internet | 18,790 | 6,390 | 330 | 34% |
| South Yorkshire | Quickline | 13,290 | 9,080 | 240 | 68% |
| Suffolk | CityFibre | 38,350 | 17,360 | 490 | 45% |
| West and Parts of North Yorkshire | Quickline | 28,950 | 16,310 | 610 | 56% |
| TOTAL | 837,340 | 256,680 | 6,680 | 31% |
Remember – it’s important to understand the context behind each contract before judging delivery progress, since a face-value assessment will often overlook key realities. Speaking of which, some of the contracted figures may differ from the original announcements, which reflects the usual modifications (i.e. the scope of delivery can increase or decrease, such as due to commercial builds by other operators going further than expected or builds costing more than expected etc.).
For some extra context, you can check out the previous figures for April 2026 (here).
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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The other thing of note is it doesn’t show the dates the contracts were awarded so it is impossible to make direct comparisons anyway. Openreach for instance has only recently acquired some areas that had previously failed under other networks.
Hi Mark,
I note on this update the premises for Leicestershire & Warwickshire is 22,480 but on the April update is 38,230 total contracted premises. Is there any reason for this change? I note your article yesterday stating 2000 premises have been removed but this is way bigger of a change.
So my guess is that there’s either another change to come, BDUK made an error or some contracted premises have been held back and placed into the ‘Under Review’ category (i.e. they may be added back later). The ‘Contracted premises’ figures in these updates doesn’t tend to include those ‘Under Review’ (many contracts have some of these), which may have been impacted by yesterday’s change.
I’ll try to find out.
I’m still in disbelief that anyone let alone the government can herald this as progress yes it’s pushing the country towards a a better position in general but keep in mind the original context of project Gigabit; “To address the Digital Divide” back when it was originally announced there were around 120,000 properties with access to a “decent” broadband connection. Now that figure still sits at around 50,000 so in 5 years they have only managed to address their core demographic to the tune of around 14,000 properties a year. It’s wonderful that those who already had access to 30-500+ mbs connection have been upgraded as well but in terms of the core principle of “lessening the digital divide” there is only really one conclusion. That it’s an apoplectic failure.
Thankfully we can now receive a “decent” service thanks to Starlink but it has to be seen in view of the Government spending >£0.5 Billion on OneWeb with absolutely no investment being used to service those “hard to reach properties”. As well as many more billions on the various tranches of project Gigabit upgrading properties that already have access to decent connection to an even better one. While leaving the hard to reach properties left in the dust. (Our exchange & surrounding properties were recently upgraded by open reach and after 15 years of being in & out & back in again… We’re now out of scope again & our new target timeframe is 2030…)
I would have to say the only thing that project Gigabit has successfully accomplished is Worsening the digital divide.
I’m still in disbelief that anyone let alone the government can herald this as progress yes it’s pushing the country towards a a better position in general but keep in mind the original context of project Gigabit; “To address the Digital Divide” back when it was originally announced there were around 120,000 properties with access to a “decent” broadband connection. Now that figure still sits at around 50,000 so in 5 years they have only managed to address their core demographic to the tune of around 14,000 properties a year. It’s wonderful that those who already had access to 30-500+ mbs connection have been upgraded as well but in terms of the core principle of “lessening the digital divide” there is only really one conclusion. That it’s an apoplectic failure.
Thankfully we can now receive a “decent” service thanks to Starlink but it has to be seen in view of the Government spending >£0.5 Billion on OneWeb with absolutely no investment being used to service those “hard to reach properties”. As well as many more billions on the various tranches of project Gigabit upgrading properties that already have access to decent connection to an even better one. While leaving the hard to reach properties left in the dust. (Our exchange & surrounding properties were recently upgraded by open reach and after 15 years of being in & out & back in again… We’re now out of scope again & our new target timeframe is 2030…)
I would have to say the only thing that project Gigabit has successfully accomplished is Worsening the digital divide.