Broadband speeds by UK parliamentary constituency

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

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.

Conservative

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

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)

file-xlsx

League table

The full data set can be downloaded here.

file-pdf

Press release

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

file-pdf

Methodology

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

Contact us

Dan Howdle

Dan Howdle

Consumer telecoms analyst

Email: dan@cable.co.uk

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