Summary

  • BDUK’s 17 October snapshot lists 861,890 initially contracted premises and 340,880 built; the contract base changes with scope and eligibility records.
  • The quarterly official series counts gigabit coverage delivered through subsidy, while the monthly table follows contract progress.

A broadband dashboard usually offers a soothing ritual: take “built,” divide by “contracted,” and admire the percentage. BDUK’s October Project Gigabit table makes that little bit of arithmetic more interesting. The number under the fraction can move too.

Updated on 23 October, the table is a snapshot of data held on 17 October. It lists 861,890 premises in the initial scope of contracts and 340,880 built contracted premises. BDUK excludes deferred scope from that contract base and rounds the figures to the nearest ten. Those are useful portfolio numbers, with a date and a scope attached.

The September edition, also updated on 23 October, captured a 17 September snapshot: 846,770 contracted and 318,000 built. Between the published totals, the contract base rose by 15,120 and the built tally by 22,880. The October footnotes show why the denominator deserves attention: one contract’s scope changed, while new financial models altered the number of eligible premises in two intervention areas. BDUK also reports a variable lag between delivery or signature and data arriving in its systems. A road crew can finish a connection before the spreadsheet learns about it; an eligibility model can move the boundary around the work.

BDUK publishes another ledger for a different question. Its quarterly official statistics count premises that received gigabit-capable coverage through subsidy. For April to June 2026, BDUK estimated 46,300 such premises; the cumulative programme total since 2012 stood at 1,462,910. The monthly contract table and the quarterly statistics have different populations, periods and jobs. Putting their totals on one line would make a tidy chart and a muddled argument.

The official series also changes as records improve. The latest quarterly release revised the 2025/26 total downward by about 1,730 premises, with the bulletin describing later information and methodology updates. A revision is part of the measurement history; the old figure should travel beside the new one, with the reason and date.

The clean reading is simple: contract scope, built count, snapshot date and ingestion age belong together. BDUK’s public reporting has both a monthly portfolio view and a quarterly subsidy-output view. Readers can see more when each counter arrives with the label on its box.

Sources: October 2026 Project Gigabit contract table, September 2026 table, quarterly delivery statistics, and quality and methodology information. Further official records: the quarterly bulletin, BDUK’s performance collection, and the quarterly comparisons data file.