The short answer: there is no single UK speed
Search for the average UK broadband speed and you'll find numbers from under 70Mbps to almost 300Mbps. None of them is wrong: they come from different organisations, measure different things and were taken at different times.
The newest official national figure for the speeds homes actually get (a median, in Mbps) is Ofcom's, and it comes from data collected in March 2023. Newer figures exist, but they measure something else. For your own line, the comparison that counts is with the speed estimate and minimum guaranteed speed your provider gave you; national figures are useful context once you compare like with like.
Ofcom writes Mbit/s and most speed testers write Mbps; both mean megabits per second (see our guide to broadband speed units).
The main UK speed figures side by side
Each figure is shown with who published it, what it measures and when (checked October 2026). They answer different questions, so we haven't averaged them.
Figure | Publisher and measure | Data period (published) |
|---|---|---|
69.4Mbps down, 18.4Mbps up | Ofcom: median 24-hour speed, measured at the router on a panel of homes | March 2023 (14 September 2023) |
139.1Mbps down | Ofcom: mean (simple average) of the same measurements | March 2023 (14 September 2023) |
285Mbps down | Ofcom Connected Nations: mean of the maximum download speed delivered to each home, as reported by providers' systems | July 2025 (19 November 2025) |
100.8Mbps down, 25.5Mbps up | thinkbroadband tests, via ISPreview: average of the eight largest national providers' medians | H1 2026, data processed in late April (15 June 2026) |
181.59Mbps down, 56.57Mbps up | Ookla Speedtest Global Index, via ISPreview: median of UK fixed broadband tests | May 2026 (6 July 2026) |
What Ofcom's home broadband performance research measured, and when
For years Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, measured the speeds homes actually received. The newest report was published on 14 September 2023, using data collected in March 2023. Ofcom called it its last planned home broadband performance report and said it was exploring alternative data sources. We found no newer edition when we checked in October 2026.
Ofcom has used measured speeds since then, but not to give a national figure in Mbps. Its Connected Nations 2024 report, published on 5 December 2024, used tests built into the routers of four large providers, on a sample of consumer lines in March 2024, to compare evening peak-time download speeds (8pm to 10pm) with the 24-hour average. Peak-time speeds were 98.7% to 99.7% of the daily average. Ofcom said that data isn't directly comparable with its earlier reports, and from 2025 it stopped reporting time-of-day figures because the variation across the day was low.
How the measurements were taken
Ofcom's figures came from two kinds of test, both run at the router rather than on people's phones or laptops: volunteers who connected a monitoring unit from SamKnows, a measurement company, to their router, and tests built into the routers of the UK's four largest broadband providers. ISPreview, the UK broadband news site, reported that the tests ran when the connection was otherwise idle.
Ofcom says this captures what the provider delivers to the router, leaving out Wi-Fi, home wiring, other devices in the house, your own devices' limits and the servers you connect to. A phone test in the back bedroom includes all of those.
One detail matters for very fast packages. Ofcom noted that a gigabit Ethernet connection limits accurate measurement to about 940Mbps, so for Virgin Media's 1.13Gbps package it used data from the provider's own routers. The same ceiling applies at home: a wired test through a 1Gbps Ethernet port can't show more than that.
What Ofcom found in March 2023
- Download: a median of 69.4Mbps over 24 hours, up 10.1Mbps (17%) on March 2022. Ofcom said the rise came mainly from people upgrading to faster packages rather than from individual packages getting faster.
- Upload: a median of 18.4Mbps, up 7.8Mbps (73%).
- Package mix: across all UK home broadband lines (from providers' data, not just the test panel), 93% were superfast products (advertised at 30Mbps or more) and 11% ultrafast (300Mbps or more).
- Slow lines: 3% of lines averaged under 10Mbps over 24 hours, down from 4% in 2022.
- Latency: full fibre packages had median 24-hour latency (the time data takes to make a round trip) of 4.9 to 7.3 milliseconds, while older ADSL2+ broadband was highest at around 24 milliseconds. See our latency, ping and jitter guide.
- Providers on the same network: Ofcom found few differences between comparable services from providers that buy the same wholesale products from Openreach, the company that runs much of the UK's phone and broadband network.
Why Ofcom used the median, not the mean
The mean download speed in March 2023 was 139.1Mbps, more than double the median of 69.4Mbps. Ofcom used medians because a small number of very fast or very slow lines can pull a mean up or down, and because medians are in line with the Advertising Standards Authority and Committee of Advertising Practice guidance on broadband speed claims.
The median is the middle result when all the lines are put in order. A made-up example: if five homes measured 20, 40, 60, 80 and 900Mbps, the median would be 60Mbps but the mean 220Mbps, which describes none of them. So when a source quotes an "average" UK speed, check which kind it means.
Ofcom's results by type of connection
The single national median hides big differences between technologies. These are Ofcom's median 24-hour download speeds for March 2023:
Connection type | Median download, March 2023 |
|---|---|
Cable (Virgin Media's network) | 270.6Mbps |
Full fibre (fibre all the way to the home) | 149.2Mbps |
Part fibre, or FTTC (fibre to the street cabinet, copper to the home) | 55.7Mbps |
ADSL (copper all the way to the exchange) | 11.7Mbps |
These are medians of the packages people had in March 2023, not the most each technology can deliver.
How the official median changed, 2017 to 2023
ISPreview keeps a running list of Ofcom's median results, by year. Between its 2017 and 2023 entries the median download almost doubled and the median upload more than trebled:
Year (as ISPreview lists it) | Median download | Median upload |
|---|---|---|
2017 | 36Mbps | 5Mbps |
2018 | 37Mbps | 6Mbps |
2019 | 42.1Mbps | 9.3Mbps |
2020 | 50Mbps | 9.8Mbps |
2021 | 50.4Mbps | 9.8Mbps |
2022 | 59.4Mbps | 10.7Mbps |
2023 | 69.4Mbps | 18.4Mbps |
The 2022 and 2023 entries come from data collected in March of each year. Between them, an interim update using September 2022 data gave a median of 65.3Mbps down and 15.5Mbps up. ISPreview reported that the interim update used a SamKnows panel of around 2,600 homes and was restricted to the biggest providers because there was too little data from smaller ones. Ofcom put the rise from 2022 to 2023 down mainly to people moving to faster packages.
Ofcom's 285Mbps figure measures something different
Ofcom's Connected Nations report, its annual look at broadband and mobile networks, now carries its newest speed figure. The 2025 edition, published on 19 November 2025 and based on provider data from July 2025, gives a UK average maximum download speed of 285Mbps, up from 223Mbps in 2024 and 170Mbps in 2023.
Ofcom defines this as the mean of the maximum download speeds delivered to each home (for example, to the router), as reported by providers' systems. Since 2024 providers send the maximum recorded download speed for each line, and Ofcom says the results aren't comparable with earlier reports, which used average speeds; it re-worked the 2023 data the new way, so 170Mbps, 223Mbps and 285Mbps line up with each other. The 2023 performance report was different again: a median of each panel line's 24-hour average speed, not a mean of each line's maximum. So 285Mbps isn't a newer version of 69.4Mbps, and the two shouldn't be used to work out a rise.
Nation | Average maximum download, July 2025 |
|---|---|
Northern Ireland | 325Mbps |
England | 288Mbps |
Scotland | 273Mbps |
Wales | 243Mbps |
The same report shows how package choice shapes these numbers. In July 2025, 21% of customers on full fibre networks had packages of 900Mbps or more (up from 17% in 2024 and 14% in 2023), while 55% were on packages of 300Mbps or less.
For reading Connected Nations data for your area, see our guide to Connected Nations and constituency broadband data; terms like superfast and gigabit-capable are covered in superfast, ultrafast and gigabit explained.
What independent speed test data shows
With no new Ofcom national speed figure in Mbps since the March 2023 data, the most recent figures come from speed testing companies. Their tests run on people's own devices, often over Wi-Fi, so they reflect everyday experience more than what the line can deliver.
thinkbroadband's test database, via ISPreview
ISPreview publishes half-year studies based on the database of consumer web speed tests run on thinkbroadband's tester. Its H1 2026 study, published on 15 June 2026 using data processed in late April, lists median download and upload speeds for each of the eight largest national providers, so if you're with one of them you can look up its figure. Their download medians ranged from 50.2Mbps to 265.6Mbps (Virgin Media).
ISPreview's headline figure for the group, an average download speed of 100.8Mbps (up from 91.28Mbps in its H2 2025 study, data processed at the end of November 2025) and upload of 25.5Mbps (up from 21.21Mbps), is the simple average of those eight medians. Each provider counts equally, however many customers it has, so it isn't a median of all tests and doesn't describe a typical UK line.
ISPreview is careful about what this shows. It says web-based tests are affected by slow Wi-Fi, the limits of the tester, local congestion and the packages people choose, so the results show how the market changes over time and "MUST NOT be taken as a reflection of ISP capability". Take-up, such as how many customers are still on ADSL or part fibre, affects results more than which networks are available.
Ookla's Speedtest Global Index
Ookla, the company behind Speedtest, publishes a monthly index of median speeds by country, updated mid-month and covering the previous three months. ISPreview reports on it regularly; each figure below is tied to its month:
- May 2026: UK median fixed broadband download 181.59Mbps, upload 56.57Mbps, latency 12ms, 43rd in the world (reported by ISPreview on 6 July 2026).
- November 2025: download 147.35Mbps, up from 117.49Mbps in November 2024, and upload 45.07Mbps, up from 30.28Mbps; the UK ranked 44th in both years (reported by ISPreview on 27 December 2025).
Ookla's study of the biggest providers
ISPreview reported on 4 August 2026 that Ookla's study of the first half of 2026 (31.61 million tests) found Virgin Media had the fastest median download, 272.56Mbps, with BT at 258.04Mbps, while BT had the fastest median upload (70.02Mbps against Virgin Media's 51.09Mbps). Two caveats from ISPreview matter. Ookla's "BT" result refers to the "BT full fibre network", which it says includes BT, EE and BT business customers, and ISPreview says it's unclear whether BT's slower part-fibre and ADSL lines were separated out. And the study seems to deliberately exclude smaller providers and alternative networks.
That shows how much the method matters. For roughly the same half-year, BT's median download was 69.5Mbps in ISPreview's thinkbroadband study but 258.04Mbps in Ookla's study, which describes its BT figure as the full fibre network. Ookla's figures, like thinkbroadband's, are crowdsourced and affected by Wi-Fi, local congestion, servers and package choice: treat them as what testers saw, not a ranking of networks. If you're weighing up Virgin Media or BT, judge each on the speed estimate it gives for your address and connection type.
Why the figures disagree
- Where the test ends. Ofcom measured at the router; thinkbroadband and Ookla tests run on a device, Wi-Fi and all.
- What is counted. Ofcom's 2023 median and Ookla's index are medians of measured speeds; ISPreview's thinkbroadband headline is a simple average of eight providers' medians; Connected Nations is a mean of each line's maximum recorded download speed from providers' systems.
- Whose lines. Ofcom's panel was largely limited to the biggest providers; ISPreview's study covers the largest national providers; Ookla's index is built from tests people run with Speedtest.
- When. The Ofcom panel figures are from March 2023; the independent ones are from 2025 and 2026. Ofcom's own provider data shows the move to faster packages since: the share of full fibre customers on 900Mbps or more rose from 14% in 2023 to 21% in 2025.
How to compare your own speed fairly
The first four steps tell you whether your line is doing its job; the fifth adds national context.
- Find out what you're paying for. Check your connection type (full fibre, part fibre, cable or ADSL) and your package speed. Our guide on how to check your broadband connection type helps if you're unsure.
- Get a clean, wired reading. Ofcom advises testing on a computer connected to the router by an Ethernet cable, because Wi-Fi can slow the signal. You can use our broadband speed test; our guide on why speed tests give different results covers running tests you can compare. thinkbroadband adds that testing off-peak, after midnight and before 3pm, helps show whether congestion is the cause.
- Look at your router's own figure. On ADSL and part fibre lines the router shows a connection, or sync, speed, and thinkbroadband says a speed test normally shows about 86% to 96% of it. Full fibre has a fixed connection speed, and cable usually over-provisions by about 10%. See router line statistics explained.
- Compare with your own estimate and guarantee. Providers that have signed Ofcom's voluntary broadband speeds code must give you an estimate of your busy-time speed and a minimum guaranteed speed before you buy; the minimum is the download speed to your router. See our guide to broadband speed promises and minimum guarantees.
- Then compare with a figure measured the same way. A wired result at the router sits closest to Ofcom's method, so use its median for your connection type, not the overall one. A Wi-Fi test on your phone sits closer to crowdsourced figures: Ookla's UK median, or your own provider's median in ISPreview's thinkbroadband study. Whichever you use, note its date.
If your speed is fine during the day but drops every evening, see why broadband slows down in the evening.
Which figure to compare your result with
Your result | Closest comparison | Why |
|---|---|---|
Wired test at the router, daytime | Your provider's estimate and minimum guarantee; for context, Ofcom's March 2023 median for your connection type | Both measure to the router, without Wi-Fi |
Wi-Fi test on a phone or laptop | Ookla's UK median, or your provider's median in ISPreview's thinkbroadband study, with their dates | They're made up of tests like yours, Wi-Fi included |
Router's sync speed | Your package speed; not Ofcom's medians | Sync is the line's connection rate, not measured throughput |
Your package's advertised speed | Not a national median at all | It's what you bought; national figures mix every package |
Upload deserves its own check, especially if you work from home or back up photos to the cloud. Our guide to download vs upload speed explains why the two often differ so much.
Is your speed below the UK figure a problem?
Not necessarily. Ofcom said the rise in its 2023 median came mainly from people upgrading packages, so a household on a modest package can be well below a national median while getting exactly what it pays for.
A hypothetical example: say you're on part fibre (FTTC) and a wired morning test gives 50Mbps. That's below Ofcom's March 2023 overall median of 69.4Mbps and a little below its 55.7Mbps FTTC median, which on its own tells you little. What matters is whether 50Mbps sits within your estimate and above your minimum guarantee. If it does, the line is doing its job; if it's below the guarantee, you have a case to raise with your provider.
Being above a national figure doesn't settle things either: a gigabit line testing well above Ookla's May 2026 UK median of 181.59Mbps could still be underperforming against its own package. And if wired tests are fine but Wi-Fi is poor, the problem is inside your home, which no national figure reflects.
What to do next
If you're below your minimum guaranteed speed, contact your provider with dated wired results. Under Ofcom's speeds code, if a problem on a signatory provider's network keeps you below the minimum and it isn't fixed within 30 days, the provider must let you leave without an early exit fee.
If your package or connection type is the limit, work out what broadband speed you need, then see what's available at your address. Our fibre broadband deals page covers full fibre and part fibre options, and our guide to upgrading to full fibre covers what changes. To see live offers, compare deals at your postcode. Those deals come through our partner's comparison widget, which can't tell you how a particular line will perform, so read the speed estimate and minimum guaranteed speed each provider gives for your address before ordering. Our broadband providers page has background on the companies we cover.
If you just want to keep an eye on things, run a wired test now and then at the same time of day. Your own dated record will tell you more about your line than any national figure.
Where to find newer UK figures
Ookla's index updates mid-month, ISPreview's thinkbroadband studies come every half-year (the latest we found was published on 15 June 2026) and Connected Nations comes yearly (the 2025 edition was published on 19 November 2025). Quote any figure with its date. If Ofcom publishes new actual-speed research, we'll update this guide.
UK broadband speed figures FAQs
What is the average broadband speed in the UK?
It depends on the measure. Ofcom's newest measured national figure is a median download of 69.4Mbps and upload of 18.4Mbps, from March 2023 data published on 14 September 2023. Its Connected Nations 2025 report gives 285Mbps, but that's the mean of the maximum download speeds delivered to each home in July 2025, as reported by providers' systems. Ookla's index for May 2026, as reported by ISPreview, gave a median of 181.59Mbps from crowdsourced tests. Always check which measure and date a figure uses.
When did Ofcom last measure UK home broadband speeds?
Ofcom's last measured national speed figures (medians in Mbps) come from its home broadband performance report, published on 14 September 2023 using March 2023 data. Ofcom called it its last planned report of this kind. Connected Nations 2024 used March 2024 router test data from four large providers, but only to compare peak-time with all-day speeds, and from 2025 Ofcom stopped reporting even that. When we checked in October 2026 we found no newer measured figure.
Why do different sources give such different UK average speeds?
They measure different things at different times. Ofcom's 2023 panel tested at the router, leaving out Wi-Fi; Ookla and thinkbroadband use tests people run on their own devices; ISPreview's thinkbroadband headline averages eight providers' medians; Connected Nations reports a mean of each home's maximum download speed from providers' systems. That's why they shouldn't be averaged or compared directly.
Is my broadband slow if it's below the UK median?
Not necessarily. National medians mix every kind of package, and Ofcom said its 2023 rise came mainly from people upgrading. In July 2025, 55% of customers on full fibre networks were on packages of 300Mbps or less. The fair test is whether your wired speed sits within the estimate your provider gave you and above your minimum guaranteed speed. If it does, your line is doing its job; a faster result would need a faster package.
Will switching provider get me closer to the UK average speed?
Only if a faster package or technology is available at your address. In March 2023 Ofcom found few differences between comparable services from providers using the same Openreach wholesale products, so moving between them on the same kind of line may change little. Check what full fibre or cable options reach your home, then compare deals at your postcode and judge each on the speed estimate and minimum guarantee it gives for your address.
