UK Ranked 33rd of 34 in Kearney's global telecoms health index

Management consulting firm Kearney has ranked the United Kingdom 33rd out of 34 countries in its new Global Telecom Health Index, a benchmark that measures the health of national telecoms sectors covering both fixed broadband and mobile.

The index, published this week, is Kearney's first global edition and expands on its 2025 European Telecom Health Index, which covered 20 European markets. This time the firm assessed 34 markets using 20 metrics grouped into five dimensions: financial performance, commercial ability, technology deployment, business environment and customer sentiment.

At the top of the ranking sit the UAE and Qatar, placed first and second. Kearney said they were the only two markets to combine top-five technology deployment with the two highest customer sentiment scores globally, and that they outperformed larger markets including the United States, South Korea and Singapore.

Where the UK fell short

The UK ended up in the bottom 10, ahead of only one country in the overall ranking. Kearney found that low financial scores were common across the weakest markets, which typically leads to poor technology deployment and, in turn, lower customer satisfaction.

The firm grouped Canada and the UK together as examples of markets that "rank particularly low on customer sentiment and also rank in the bottom half on technology deployment and commercial dimensions".

The report singled out mid-contract price rises as a source of discontent in the UK, saying they "have become the norm, leading to customer discontent and a value perception gap when paying more for a service that is not seen as having improved". It added that government and regulatory intervention, coupled with negative press coverage, had made these increases particularly visible.

"There is an opportunity for operators to revisit their pricing and bundling models to drive higher value perception, especially in markets with the potential for higher service convergence," Kearney said.

The consolidation argument

A recurring theme in the report is market structure. Kearney found that markets with two or three mobile operators generally scored higher across financial, commercial and technology deployment measures than those with four or more, though it conceded the difference was smaller than might be expected. It reported that "in both mobile and fixed, financial and commercial health scores are higher in markets with fewer than four operators".

One analysis put the figure at 24 of the 34 healthiest telecoms markets having three or fewer mobile operators.

Kearney suggested some markets would benefit from more concentration, arguing this would support larger consolidated operators to "invest more effectively in a single network infrastructure (or work more closely with a wholesale partner in the case of retail Internet service providers)".

That reading maps onto the UK's fixed line broadband market, which remains crowded with alternative full fibre networks, many of them squeezed by rising build costs, high interest rates and competition that spreads customers thinly across multiple networks.

Rajiv Datta, chief executive of nexfibre, seized on the findings. "The results of Kearney's inaugural Global Telecom Health Index offer clear counsel; the research finds that more concentrated markets achieve higher fibre coverage and take-up, as well as more positive customer outcomes," he said. "The UK's telecoms market is fragmented and fragile. To deliver greater choice and quality for consumers and businesses alike, it requires a scaled financially-secure, wholesale challenger. Consolidation will be crucial as the route to sustainable competition and a healthier sector. The UK now has an opportunity to move beyond fragmentation and build a competitive, resilient fibre market that can support the country's digital and economic ambitions for generations to come."

Datta's firm is one of the players active in that consolidation, with VMO2 and nexfibre pursuing a £2bn move to acquire Netomnia, set against CityFibre's own attempt to acquire the same operator.

Size and wealth are not decisive

Kearney stressed that its findings challenge the assumption that sector health follows from market size or national wealth. It said it found no link between overall telecoms health and either a country's size or its GDP per capita.

The United States, despite high GDP per capita and widespread fibre and 5G availability, was held back by weaker customer satisfaction and mixed financial returns. South Korea and Singapore ranked in the second quartile despite advanced technology deployment, with customer satisfaction and returns below expectations constraining their positions.

The firm also pointed to infrastructure ownership as a factor, finding that operators retaining their tower estates, as in the UAE, showed stronger technology deployment and commercial performance than markets where passive infrastructure had been sold off.

How the index works

Each of the 34 markets is scored across the five dimensions using 20 metrics drawn from Kearney's own data, primary consumer research and third-party sources. Financial performance measures return on capital employed and EBITDA averaged over three years. Commercial ability covers pricing relative to inflation, revenue growth, cross-selling of fixed and mobile services, and fibre and 5G penetration. Technology deployment tracks fibre and 5G coverage and the speeds delivered. Business environment covers market concentration alongside economic risk, talent pool quality and government digitisation. Customer sentiment is based on Kearney's consumer survey.

Kearney said it changed the framework from its 2025 index after talks with telecoms executives and regulators, adjusting the measurement and weighting of some metrics and altering data sources. As a result, scores cannot be compared with the 2025 edition, and the firm said it draws no conclusions about directional trends.

It was also at pains to note that the index measures the overall telecoms sector in each country rather than individual operators, and should not be read as an operator league table. The published report does not include a detailed country-by-country breakdown of scores, and Kearney's assessment involves judgement in the selection and weighting of metrics, applied consistently across all 34 markets.