All of the UK’s biggest mobile networks have been put through their paces and these are the winners and losers.
If your smartphone signal always feels weak and you can’t access speedy 5G, you might want to switch UK networks. All four of the biggest providers have just been put to the test with the network team at Ookla: RootMetrics roaming across Britain to see who is offerining the best speed, reliability, calls, texts and data.
So who has come out on top?
The overall prize has been handed to EE, with the BT-owned service scoring high marks across all categories. Along with winning the most gongs, EE also grabbed the award for fastest UK-wide aggregate median download speed, at 110.8 Mbps. At that rate, EE customers could download a full HD movie to their phones in just 5 minutes. Some other networks could only offer downloads at under 40Mbps.
“EE continued to lead the way in 2025, winning or sharing every UK-wide RootScore during testing,” Rootmetrics said.
“EE has won our UK Overall RootScore Award outright in every test period since 2H 2013, earning recognition as the UK’s best network for 12 years running.”
EE’s 5G network also impressed. The operator won the Best 5G Experience award thanks to its combination of widespread availability and strong performance. For those not in the know, 5G is latest network technology that not only offers fast downloads but also more reliable speeds, especially in busy areas such as football stadiums and train stations.
EE is top of the charts but Vodafone was a pretty close second. Three then came in third place.
“Vodafone posted strong results in our UK-wide testing, ranking second in seven out of eight categories.
Three again earned a share of the UK Text RootScore Award, and the operator’s rankings remained steady in every other category, with a second-place finish for Call Performance and third-place finishes in the remaining categories.
Although it came bottom overall, Virgin Media O2 earned a share of the UK Text RootScore Award, tying with EE and Three.
RootMetrics says it conducted over 625,000 tests to measure the real-world performance of mobile operators in the United Kingdom.
SEE THE FULL SCORES BELOW
EE
Overall – 93.2 • Reliability – 93.5 • Responsiveness – 93 • Speed – 90.8 • Data – 91.5 • Call – 98.6 • Text – 99.7 • Video – 88.3
VODAFONE
Overall – 85.7 • Reliability – 86.5 • Responsiveness – 89.5 • Speed – 75.4 • Data – 82 • Call – 95.6 • Text – 98.6 • Video – 85.7
THREE
Overall – 84.2 • Reliability – 85.3 • Responsiveness – 89.2 • Speed – 70.8 • Data – 79.7 • Call – 96.3 • Text – 99.2 • Video – 83.5
O2
Overall – 80.1 • Reliability – 81.4 • Responsiveness – 87.7 • Speed – 63.5 • Data – 75.1 • Call – 92.8 • Text – 99.1 • Video – 81.1