Oct 2026 Contract Progress of UK’s Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout

The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) office has today published the October 2026 update on the delivery progress of contracts awarded under their £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme. The update reveals that some 340,880 contracted premises (up from 318,000 in Sept 2026) have so far been covered out of a planned total of 861,890 (40% complete).

Just to remind. The figures in this update are not directly comparable to the figures published in BDUK’s annual 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, here and here).

However, it’s worth remembering that these contracts were all awarded at different times and are thus at very different stages of development – some were started 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-out for County Durham etc. Meanwhile, others, such as Openreach’s contract for Cheshire (here), were only added in the April 2026 update.

Lest we forget that the ebb and flow of a build can also vary a lot from month to month as different phases start and finish, with some appearing to stop one month and surge the next. Suffice to say, it’s important to understand the context behind each contract before judging delivery progress, since a face-value assessment will often overlook key realities.

Some of the contracted figures may also differ from the original announcements, which reflects the usual modifications. For example, the scope of delivery can increase or decrease, such as due to commercial builds by rival operators going further than expected (making public investment unnecessary) or builds costing more than expected etc.

In addition, the table below still doesn’t include two of GoFibre’s Project Gigabit contracts for Scotland, which is due to those Type A contracts being partly led by the devolved authorities themselves (i.e. there’s presently a lack of sufficient data sharing with BDUK).

Changes in the Oct 2026 update

In terms of the key changes this time around. Openreach’s contract for ‘CO4 South Devon, Mid Devon and North Somerset’ is said to be awaiting fresh data from the operator, so the reduction of -10 should be taken with a pinch of salt until the final data for the past month is known. The CO8 Cheshire contract has also been updated to reflect Openreach’s recent contract changes (here), which has increased its size.

Finally, the CityFibre contract for Cambridgeshire and the GoFibre contract for Durham have both seen a decrease in contracted premises due to “new financial models altering number of eligible premises in the intervention area“. Otherwise, there weren’t too many significant developments.

Project Gigabit – Contracted and Built Premises by Contract (October 2026)

For some extra context, you can check out the previous figures for September 2026 (here).