EXCLUSIVE: New analysis shows new build properties reaching 99% full fibre coverage in 2025/2026

It has been a long time since we looked at the state of new home statistics and starting in 2023 it looks like the UK has been hitting 99% full fibre availability in new-builds.

Previously we used to present data based on calendar year, but we re-worked the analysis to shift to financial year, so for example 2025 is shown as April 2025 through to and including March 2026.

The figures for 2026 are slightly down at 97%, but there is only ONS postcode data for postcodes with an introduction date of April 2026 and therefore the sample is small. If in 12 months time the 2026 data is still down at 97%, then there is a problem.

Years prior to 2016 pre-date the big push for full fibre in new homes and therefore much of the full fibre coverage is down to retro-active rollouts, but as the new builds are generally ducted and with accurate plans the large networks such as Openreach find it easier to rollout full fibre to these than older housing stock that may be nearby and suffering from direct in ground copper.

Gigabit capable broadband which is usually full fibre was mandated as the default for new builds in 2020, and the small gap that does exist is likely to be down to the cost caps. Another factor is the rise of large blocks of student accommodation in the last decade and there may be some where we have recorded a number of flats but are unable to determine if full fibre with wireless or Ethernet into each flat is available. This is also the case with the increase in a number of urban private developments where a single Wi-Fi appears to have the contract for all rental flats but there is no indication of who this broadband provider is. If there is an indication that Gigabit capable Wi-Fi is deployed in a building we do record some under a Generic or Student flats network for statistics purposes.

With all the improvements to work at UPRN (address) level internally, we can share indications of both how many addresses appeared in each financial year, along with the number of premises that have been added to our database.

By looking at housing starts versus what we have mapped into our databases be they stuck with copper broadband, part fibre, or blessed with Gigabit options be that cable or full fibre you can get an idea of how much more work we need to do. The cap between the starts and mapping starts to widen in 2023 and this is driven by serval things, it is not uncommon for a UPRN and postcode to be issued a long time ahead of the physical building being present, this gap means we sometimes don’t circle back to a UPRN/postcode for a long time in rare cases e.g. single development of 4 homes. In many cases the gap is that we need to revisit the postcode and verify again then number of premises that are actually present, versus the number of UPRN issued, i.e. a postcode on a new development may appear in our maps with 2 addresses initially but grown over a period of two years to cover 42 addresses.

The Government is aiming to build 1.5 million new homes over the course of the Parliament, and given the gap between housing starts and actual homes moved into, this may only be verifiable several years later. The housing starts metric will give a better idea. Changes in planning regulations, and adoption of AI to make processing of applications faster with the appropriate oversight from planning officers may help, but the housing market is takes time to get moving.

The flip side to the Government’s ambition for 1.5 million new homes is a concerted campaign of not in my village, town, county campaigns NIMBY style. This is creating planning backlogs as objections are processed and will lead to some developments not getting approval or actual genuine concerns mitigated.

We are showing the 25/26 figures for the UK’s regions and nations to get an idea of the amount of current activity and how it compares to 2021 which bounced back from Covid delays and was less affected by the inflation spike and economic turmoil of 2022.

UK Region	Mapped Premises 2021	Mapped Premises 2025	2025 as % of all premises in region
London	37,822	17,084	0.41%
South East England	33,127	15,957	0.36%
North West England	26,619	14,202	0.37%
East of England	25,535	12,443	0.40%
Scotland	21,348	6,407	0.22%
East Midlands	20,108	10,257	0.43%
South West England	20,074	8,766	0.30%
West Midlands	19,693	7,277	0.25%
Yorkshire and Humber	17,005	7,431	0.27%
North East England	8,367	3,637	0.26%
Wales	6,406	2,424	0.15%

The percentage of all premises shows London is still the region which is at the top of chart for new homes, and a large part of that is a number of large MDU developments, which fit several hundred flats into a space that might otherwise have been a dozen large executive homes.