Broadband speeds by UK parliamentary contituency

Over 62 million speed tests were carried out to understand the difference in broadband speeds in all 650 UK constituencies as per new boundaries first fought in the 2024 UK general election.

Download data (.xls)

Highlights

There's some interesting data points in our findings. Here's a quick rundown of the highlights.

Labour constituencies have the fastest broadband

On average, Labour did better overall than any other party in terms of the average speed of broadband across the constituencies it held up to the dissolution of parliament prior to the 2024 General Election. The party's speed average is 126.75Mbps, beating the Conservatives (121.20Mbps) into second place. Independents and smaller parties came third, which the SNP came in last place of the parties.

Rishi Sunak's constituency is among the slowest in the country

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's constituency of Richmond and Northallerton was among the slowest in the UK, coming in 595th of 650 constituencies, or 56th slowest, with an average speed of just 97.25Mbps. The fastest constituency held by leaders who are serving members of parliament was that of Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey, whose Kingston and Surbiton constituency clocks in at an impressive 163.49Mbps on average – the 14th fastest constituency in the UK.

Labour dominates the top ten, Conservatives bottom ten

Labour constituencies make up six of the top ten fastest constituencies in the UK, with the Conservatives scoring just three, and one independent, Geraint Davies, presiding over the fastest constituency in the UK: Swansea West. The Conservatives do a lot better in the top 50, however, scoring 27 of the top 50 fastest constituencies, compared to just 16 from Labour. However, the Conservatives also dominat the slowest ten of 650 constituencies, as well as the bottom 50.

Broadband speeds by political party

Here we have collated the average speeds for each individual constituency and divided them up by political party to come to an average speed by party. For further information on how the speed tests were carried out, how our average speeds were calculated per constituency, and some important limitations, please refer to our methodology document, downloadable from this page.

Party	Average download
Labour	126.75Mbps
Conservative	121.20Mbps
Independent and other	116.41Mbps
Liberal Democrat	112.97Mbps
SNP	111.46Mbps

Fastest and slowest constituencies

Here is a snapshot of the fastest and slowest ten constituencies in the UK. This is merely a preview of the full data set – you can download the entire list of 650 constituencies and their speeds from this page.

Top 10 fastest constituencies

Rank	Constituency	MP	Party	Constituency download speed in Mbps
1	Swansea West	Geraint Davies	Independent	192.61
2	Southampton Itchen	Royston Smith	Conservative	187.34
3	Southampton Test	Alan Whitehead	Labour	184.10
4	Portsmouth South	Stephen Morgan	Labour	178.39
5	Portsmouth North	Penny Mordaunt	Conservative	178.38
6	Gower	Tonia Antoniazzi	Labour	174.39
7	Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham	Diana Johnson	Labour	167.92
8	Neath and Swansea East	Christina Rees	Labour	167.56
9	Sutton and Cheam	Paul Scully	Conservative	166.96
10	Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice	Emma Hardy	Labour	166.02

Top 10 slowest constituencies

Rank	Constituency	MP	Party	Constituency download speed in Mbps
650	Na h-Eileanan an Iar	Angus Brendan MacNeil	Independent	40.69
649	Whitehaven and Workington	Trudy Harrison	Conservative	51.81
648	Orkney and Shetland	Alistair Carmichael	Liberal Democrat	57.06
647	Caithness Sutherland and Easter Ross	Jamie Stone	Liberal Democrat	62.27
646	Aberdeenshire North and Moray East	Douglas Ross	Conservative	62.97
645	North Norfolk	Duncan Baker	Conservative	63.73
644	Bournemouth East	Tobias Ellwood	Conservative	66.76
643	Ynys Mon	Virginia Crosbie	Conservative	70.21
642	Argyll Bute and South Lochaber	Brendan O'Hara	Scottish National Party	71.05
641	North Devon	Selaine Saxby	Conservative	73.94

Cabinet versus Shadow Cabinet

This slice can comfortably put into the 'just a bit of fun' category. We compiled the constituency data for serving (up to dissolution) cabinet members and compared them with Labour's Shadow Cabinet. Labour came out faster, though not by much.

Cabinet Ministers	Constituency download speed in Mbps	Shadow Cabinet	Constituency download speed in Mbps
Rishi Sunak	97.26	Keir Starmer	131.06
Oliver Dowden	117.97	Angela Rayner	97.16
Jeremy Hunt	BOUNDARY CHANGES	Rachel Reeves	132.51
Lord Cameron	NOT AN MP	Bridget Phillipson	108.52
James Cleverly	102.83	Yvette Cooper	137.64
Grant Shapps	135.94	Wes Streeting	127.06
Alex Chalk	146.70	Edward Miliband	114.81
Michelle Donelan	114.23	David Lammy	113.23
Michael Gove	133.28	Pat McFadden	123.78
Victoria Atkins	92.73	Nick Thomas-Symonds	109.81
Steve Barclay	101.69	Jonathan Ashworth	128.12
Penny Mordaunt	178.38	Shabana Mahmood	116.59
Lord True	NOT AN MP	Jonathan Reynolds	105.60
Kemi Badenoch	122.88	Liz Kendall	117.90
Claire Coutinho	122.07	John Healey	BOUNDARY CHANGES
Mel Stride	95.81	Louise Haigh	117.82
Gillian Keegan	91.26	Thangam Debbonaire	117.78
Mark Harper	108.36	Anneliese Dodds	133.93
Lucy Frazer	BOUNDARY CHANGES	Steve Reed	138.16
Richard Holden	BOUNDARY CHANGES	Peter Kyle	130.64
Chris Heaton-Harris	146.33	Hilary Benn	133.90
Alister Jack	79.19	Ian Murray	123.45
David T C Davies	105.05	Jo Stevens	BOUNDARY CHANGES
		Emily Thornberry	98.46
		Lisa Nandy	128.11
		Darren Jones	128.10
		Ellie Reeves	113.15
		Lucy Powell	125.96
		Alan Campbell	101.48
		Angela Smith	NOT AN MP
		Roy Kennedy	NOT AN MP
Average:	116.22	Average:	120.55

Broadband speeds by party leader

Finally, we take a quick look at how the constituencies of the current main party leaders and how they fare in terms of broadband speed. Note that SNP leader John Swinney doesn't have a constituency as his former constituency has been redrawn in the boundary shake-up prior to this General Election and so is not included here.

Leader	Party	Constituency download speed in Mbps
Ed Davey	Liberal Democrats	163.49
Keir Starmer	Labour	131.06
Rishi Sunak	Conservative	97.26

Resources

Downloadable versions of the data set (.xls), the original press release and the research methodology (.pdf)

League table

The full data set can be downloaded here.

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Press release

If you wish to see the original press release for this research, you can download it here as a PDF.

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Methodology

Our research methodology and notes on how to interpret the data can be downloaded here as a PDF.

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Contact us

Dan Howdle

Consumer telecoms analyst

Email: dan@cable.co.uk