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The Government’s Building Digital UK agency has published their calendar Q2 2026 progress report on their publicly subsidised gigabit broadband rollout schemes. The data reveals that some 1,462,910 premises have received coverage under BDUK’s gigabit programmes since their inception (up from 1.42m in March 2026), including 46,300 premises over the past quarter.
At present over 91% of UK premises can already access a 1000Mbps+ (1Gbps) capable broadband network (here) and Ofcom separately forecast that this could reach up to 95% by January 2029 (here). Most of this has been delivered by commercial roll-outs (predominantly focused on urban and semi-urban areas), but there are some areas in the final c.5-10% of premises that are simply too expensive for commercial providers.
Project Gigabit was originally established in 2021 and is designed to focus on those commercially unviable areas – usually “hard to reach” rural and semi-rural locations with no existing plans for a gigabit upgrade within the next 3 years. The project has already committed most of its budget up to 2032, 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).