Dec 2025 Contract Delivery Progress for UK Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout
The Government’s Building Digital UK agency has published their December 2025 update on the delivery progress of contracts that have been awarded under their £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme. The update reveals that some 183,380 contracted premises (up from 167,770 in Nov 2025) have so far been covered out of a planned total of 1,002,210.
Just to be clear. The figures in this update are not directly comparable to the figures published in BDUK’s general statistics releases. Today’s report tracks the number of contracted premises to which a supplier has delivered a gigabit-capable connection under the main subsidy scheme, whereas the official statistics include the number of premises that have also received a gigabit-capable connection as a result of any public BDUK subsidy (i.e. that covers other schemes too, like gigabit vouchers etc.).
At present over 88% of UK premises can already access a gigabit-capable network (here) and Ofcom separately forecasts that this could reach between 91-97% by January 2028 (here). Most of this has been delivered by commercial deployments (predominantly focused on urban and semi-urban areas), but there are some areas in the final 10-20% of premises that are simply too expensive for commercial providers to tackle.
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Project Gigabit was originally established in 2021 to help extend broadband ISP networks capable of delivering download speeds of at least 1000Mbps (1Gbps) to achieve “nationwide” coverage (c.99%) by 2030 2032 (here) – focusing on the commercially unviable areas (usually rural and semi-rural locations). 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 (here, here, here and here).
At this point it’s worth remembering that all of the listed contracts were 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 roll-out for North Dorset and GoFibre’s roll-outs for County Durham and North Northumberland.
Project Gigabit – Contracted Premises and Built Premises by Contract (Dec 2025)
| Contract | Supplier | Contracted premises | Built contracted premises |
| Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes | CityFibre | 21,030 | 2,460 |
| Bucks, Herts and East of Berks | CityFibre | 19,090 | 3,100 |
| CO1 Lancashire, West Berkshire, Staffordshire, Surrey, Hertfordshire, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire | Openreach | 54,340 | 8,330 |
| CO2 Devon, Mid Wales and South East Wales | Openreach | 42,270 | 4,690 |
| CO3 North Herefordshire, North Wales, Shropshire and South West Wales | Openreach | 52,060 | 50 |
| CO4 South Devon, Mid Devon and North Somerset | Openreach | 37,110 | 700 |
| CO5 Essex and North East England | Openreach | 24,710 | 300 |
| CO6 Rest of Scotland | Openreach | 65,070 | 290 |
| CO7 Worcestershire | Openreach | 22,600 | 10 |
| Cambridgeshire | CityFibre | 39,070 | 7,900 |
| Central Cornwall | Wildanet | 9,720 | 6,790 |
| Cornwall and Isle of Scilly | Wildanet | 14,430 | 2,240 |
| Cumbria | Fibrus | 53,540 | 25,980 |
| Derbyshire | Connect Fibre | 12,500 | 330 |
| Dorset and South Somerset | Wessex internet | 7,240 | 1,670 |
| Durham | GoFibre | 4,440 | 4,440 |
| East Gloucestershire | Gigaclear | 3,550 | 590 |
| East and West Sussex | CityFibre | 41,940 | 1,730 |
| Hampshire | CityFibre | 55,570 | 4,950 |
| Kent | CityFibre | 46,080 | 1,570 |
| Leicestershire and Warwickshire | CityFibre | 38,230 | 6,980 |
| Lincolnshire and East Riding | Quickline | 47,800 | 11,940 |
| New Forest | Wessex internet | 15,120 | 7,960 |
| Norfolk | CityFibre | 48,890 | 10,000 |
| North Dorset | Wessex internet | 6,480 | 6,480 |
| North East Staffordshire | Connect Fibre | 5,960 | 1,080 |
| North Oxfordshire | Gigaclear | 4,180 | 3,040 |
| North Shropshire | Freedom Fibre | 3,410 | 3,410 |
| Northern North Yorkshire | Quickline | 33,810 | 5,330 |
| Northumberland | GoFibre | 3,830 | 3,830 |
| Nottinghamshire and West Lincolnshire | CityFibre | 27,820 | 0 |
| South Oxfordshire | Gigaclear | 5,310 | 2,070 |
| South West Cornwall | Wildanet | 11,120 | 6,350 |
| South Wiltshire | Wessex internet | 18,790 | 3,890 |
| South Yorkshire | Quickline | 13,290 | 6,990 |
| Suffolk | CityFibre | 65,710 | 13,890 |
| West and Parts of North Yorkshire | Quickline | 26,310 | 12,390 |
| TOTAL | 1,002,400 | 183,380 |
We should point out that CityFibre’s progress under the £58.6m (public subsidy) contract for rural parts of Nottinghamshire and West Lincolnshire (Lot 10) needs to be taken in context, since Connexin originally held this until only a few months ago when they were acquired by CityFibre. Connexin only began the build phase at the end of last year (here), thus its delivery has been stuck in limbo due to that consolidation.
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The above is an example of why it’s important to understand the context behind each contract before judging its delivery progress, since a face-value assessment will overlook key realities. Speaking of which, some of the contracted figures may differ from the original announcements, which reflects the usual contract 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 November 2025 (here) and October 2025 (here).
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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are any of these not being built with fttp?
What is going on with city fibre’s rollout. Norfolk and cambridgeshire are the only two with decent rollout figures for city fibre’s bduk/pg rollout……
Well Quelle Surprise the Government has sold us another Damp Squib. How much further do we think the realisation of project Gigabit will be delayed? I’d honestly not be surprised if it got pushed to 2040 before getting canned because the remaining properties were not commercially viable all the while with Govmt claiming it’s a huge success.
The 2025 target for Project Gigabit coverage was 85%, it’s currently at over 88%.
Obviously most of this is commercial build, so governments haven’t had that much effect as yet. Seems to be going reasonably well so far.
What would you have them do differently?
The coverage figure of 88% is for the whole country, not just Project Gigabit.
Most of this is commercial build but the Project Gigabit component is specifically for those (mostly rural) premises that commercial operators feel are uneconomic to build to.
The government has decided to provide public funds assistance in these cases to encourage network construction.
Personally, I think several years down the line with only 18% of the intended premises built to might raise some questions. Actually, the percentage is even worse because the figures don’t include those premises in procurement contracts waiting to be signed (or re-signed)
On top of that, the figures constantly move as premises drop in and out of the contracts for multiple legitimate reasons.
What we do know is that Project Gigabit will end one day. I hope this is sooner rather than later and that it successfully enabled the intended premises to be reached using the least amount of public money.
I also hope that the arrival of Petabit sub-space communicators isn’t the thing that ends Project Gigabit.
Bravo, Openreach have now made a start in Worcestershire. One of the last areas to see improvement from Project Gigabit.
I hope 10 a year is not the rate they hope to accomplish in future years…
A business spends 6 months building spine fibre to a number of villages. Connected premises: 0. ISP Review comments: hostile. They then cable from that spine to homes within the villages. ISP Review comments: less hostile.
The spine cabling was probably the hardest part of the work and was essential but because the connected number doesn’t go up until it’s complete the assumption is nothing is getting done.
Watch an Openreach, Netomnia or CityFibre build in a town or city. The spine goes in first: you need something to connect the homes to. Most of the Gigabit projects the spine build is much more extensive per home connected than in urban areas. They are more spread out. Which is why they aren’t getting commercial build.
Exception to this is areas with direct in ground copper so no ducts or poles. These are getting done, but obviously not every contract has these in any quantity or there’s a big spine build to get to them.
TL;DR the hardest work is often front-loaded, visible results back-loaded, same with most infrastructure.
The government spending a lot of money to achieve very little and doing it very slowly
Is it a good use of taxpayers money? Probably noy