Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
ISPreview has today published our final biannual study of the United Kingdom’s broadband download and upload speeds for 2025, which reveals how the performance of the fastest nationally available fixed line ISPs, mobile network operators and Starlink (satellite) services has changed since H1 (mid-year).
The results in this report stem from web-based speed testing by consumers and are thus inevitably impacted by a number of factors, such as the rising coverage of faster networks (e.g. full fibre and 5G) and the level of take-up by customers. As a result it helps to understand any key changes in network deployments over the same sort of period, which is shown below using the latest Connected Nations 2025 data from Ofcom.
| Connection Type | July 2025 Cover | January 2025 Cover |
| % Under 10Mbps (USO) | c.1% | c.1% |
| Superfast (30Mbps+) | 98% | 98% |
| Gigabit-capable (1000Mbps+) | 87% | 84% |
| Full Fibre (FTTP) | 78% | 69% |
| 4G Geographic | 89-90% | 88-89% |
| 5G Premises (Outdoor) from at least 1 operator | 94-97% | 90-95% |
| 5G Outside Premises | 64-89% | 61-79% |
In terms of fixed lines, the primary coverage improvements have continued to come from full fibre broadband networks (Summary of UK FTTP Builds), although ongoing market pressures (high build costs, high interest rates, fierce competition etc.) are continuing to result in many alternative operators (altnets) suffering job losses and a slowdown in their deployments. But the Openreach, Netomnia and others have kept up a good pace.
Full fibre networks are now also the sole driving force behind the rise in gigabit-capable coverage, which continues to be predominantly fuelled by commercial roll-outs in urban areas. Speaking of which, gigabit coverage passed the Government’s first target (85%) under their £5bn Project Gigabit programme earlier this year (focused on the final c.10-20% of poorly served rural premises) and is now aiming to hit c.99% coverage by 2032 (delayed from the original 2030 target – here).
Finally, in terms of mobile networks, there have been further improvements in 4G and 5G (mobile broadband) coverage. Most of this stems from commercial investment, although the industry-led £1bn Shared Rural Network (SRN) project did make good progress on boosting geographic 4G coverage (here).
Fastest Major Fixed Broadband ISPs (H2 vs H1 2025)
The data in this report has been gathered from Thinkbroadband’s independent database of speedtests (inc. ISPreview’s Broadband Speedtest). But the table below only includes the largest and most established independent ISPs with strong national availability, although there is a separate table for smaller providers (inc. some altnets) on page 2 – these are difficult to include because such providers don’t produce much test data (fewer users).
Naturally, there are caveats to consider with speedtest based studies like this, not least because the results tend to be more reflective of take-up than network availability. For example, some ISPs may have a much larger proportion of customers on slower copper-based lines (ADSL or FTTC), which can weigh against those on faster FTTP services with the same provider (i.e. pulling average speeds down). The opposite can also be true.
Average Download Speeds – Top 8
| No. | Operator | H2 – 2025 (Top 10%) | H1 – 2025 (Top 10%) | Change % |
| 1. | Virgin Media | 262.9Mbps (774.3Mbps) | 264Mbps (767.8Mbps) | -0.42% |
| 2. | Zen Internet | 103.7Mbps (889.6Mbps) | 105.6Mbps (904.4Mbps) | -1.8% |
| 3. | Vodafone | 80.3Mbps (548Mbps) | 67.9Mbps (463.9Mbps) | 18.26% |
| 4. | EE | 65.6Mbps (900.6Mbps) | 75.1Mbps (715.1Mbps) | -12.65% |
| 5. | BT | 62.7Mbps (430.4Mbps) | 66.5Mbps (441.1Mbps) | -5.71% |
| 6. | Sky Broadband | 61.1Mbps (231.5Mbps) | 55.9Mbps (291.5Mbps) | 9.3% |
| 7. | Plusnet | 52.8Mbps (290.9Mbps) | 48.5Mbps (262.2Mbps) | 8.87% |
| 8. | TalkTalk | 41.2Mbps (149.6Mbps) | 37.5Mbps (147.6Mbps) | 9.87% |
Average Upload Speeds – Top 8
| No. | Operator | H2 – 2025 | H1 – 2025 | Change % |
| 1. | Zen Internet | 37.2Mbps | 46.3Mbps | -19.65% |
| 2. | Virgin Media | 33.9Mbps | 33.7Mbps | 0.59% |
| 4. | Vodafone | 19.3Mbps | 18.2Mbps | 6.04% |
| 3. | EE | 19.1Mbps | 18.4Mbps | 3.8% |
| 5. | BT | 17.5Mbps | 17.7Mbps | -1.13% |
| 6. | Sky Broadband | 17.4Mbps | 16.1Mbps | 8.07% |
| 7. | Plusnet | 15.4Mbps | 13.2Mbps | 16.67% |
| 8. | TalkTalk | 9.9Mbps | 9.3Mbps | 6.45% |
Overall, the average download speed of the top national providers was 91.28Mbps (up from 90.12Mbps) and the average upload speed hit 21.21Mbps (down from 21.61Mbps), which suggests that very little changed across the major national providers over the last half of the year. But we did see a curiously large performance slide at EE and the reverse at Vodafone.
Now flick over to page 2 to continue this summary and see how the fastest satellite (starlink), mobile operators and smaller ISPs all performed.