Bad news for Scots waiting for full fibre
Key Points
- Scotland has the lowest full fibre coverage of any UK nation at 77.2%
- Northern Ireland leads on 97.1%, followed by Wales and England
- Shetland Islands is the worst-covered UK council at 19.7%
- Scottish island councils are growing fastest in percentage terms from a low base
- UK-wide full fibre coverage reached 84.5% in Q2 2026
Scotland has the lowest full fibre coverage of any UK nation at 77.2% of premises, according to Point Topic.
The broadband analyst firm said in its Q2 2026 UK coverage update that Scotland trails Northern Ireland on 97.1%, Wales on 87.6% and England on 84.7%. It attributed the gap to Scotland’s island and rural councils.
Shetland Islands sits at the bottom of every UK council for full fibre coverage at 19.7%, unchanged since the previous quarter. Point Topic’s bottom ten list of councils is dominated by Scottish rural and island authorities.
West Dunbartonshire moved up the bottom ten ranking after lifting its coverage to 55.9%, overtaking Aberdeenshire and Harlow. The firm said the order of the list changed but its composition did not.
Na h-Eileanan Siar and Argyll and Bute recorded the fastest growth of any council in the bottom ten, with full fibre premises up 24.4% and 15.3% respectively on the previous quarter. Both remain among the lowest-covered councils in the UK in percentage terms.
Scotland as a whole recorded faster percentage growth than the rest of the UK, at a weighted average of 2.4% against 1.8% nationally. Point Topic said that reflects small, low-coverage councils growing fastest in percentage terms because they started from so little.
The Scottish Highlands stood out on the firm’s map of premises added, recording a large absolute number of new full fibre premises despite a much smaller population base than southern councils. Scotland’s coverage rose from 75.4% in Q1 2026 to 77.2% in Q2.
Across the UK, full fibre from any network reached 28.7 million premises, or 84.5% of the total. Openreach’s own build slowed sharply in the quarter to 625,000 premises added, down from 1.3 million, which Point Topic said could be due to the operator moving into harder-to-reach areas.
