May 2026 UK Contract Progress of the Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout | ISPreview UK

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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).

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.

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

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).