UK constituencies rated by their broadband speed

A brand-new study has collated data collected from 62 million internet-based UK speed tests.

This study has been carried out by M-Lab and Cable.co.uk, with the purpose of ranking each of the nation’s parliamentary constituencies by the broadband internet service provider (ISP) download performance they receive.

The report used data from between July 1, 2023, and May 13, 2024, and found that while Labour constituencies enjoyed the fastest download speeds, the Scottish National Party (SNP) constituencies were the slowest.

Overall, the study found Labour constituencies received average download speeds recorded at 126.75megabytes per second, beating Conservative constituencies, which came second with 121.20 megabytes per second.

The Independent category ranked third, with 116.41megabytes per second, followed by the Liberal Democrats at 112.97 megabytes per second, while SNP constituencies had just 111.46 megabytes per second.

Those reviewing the research should consider that internet speeds appear to be impacted by the build and commercial challenges of their area, rather than support of a specific political party. For instance, a key reason behind SNP constituencies being slowest is likely due to Scotland having many sparse and rural communities.

Additionally, data derived from online speed testing reports also comes with caveats. For example, such results shouldn’t be seen to directly reflect faster connection availability in a certain area, as these elements are rarely in sync. Results usually reflect how many consumers take-up a service than the capability of the actual network.

Furthermore, internet users are more likely to measure their broadband speed when performance is poor, or they experience a service issue, which can create negatively bias statistics.