How Much Does a Leased Line Cost in the UK in 2025?

How much does a leased line cost in the UK?

Expect £69/month at the entry point and from £129/month for a gigabit circuit, with installation from £500–£2,000. The single biggest swing factor is location: urban sites with multiple carriers nearby price far lower than rural premises that need new fibre dug to the door.

A leased line is a dedicated, symmetrical, uncontended connection — you get the full speed in both directions, all the time, backed by a Service Level Agreement. That guaranteed performance is why it costs more than shared business broadband. If you want the underlying concept first, read what a leased line actually is before you compare quotes.

Coverage is the backdrop to all of this. Full-fibre (FTTP) now reaches 79.5% of UK premises — about 26.7 million homes and businesses — and gigabit-capable broadband covers 87% of the UK, up from 84% a year earlier (Ofcom Connected Nations 2025). More fibre in the ground means more carriers competing for your postcode, and that competition pushes prices down.

What's included in leased line installation costs?

Installation covers the physical build to your premises: civil works, fibre, the carrier's hand-off and the router. It typically ranges from £500–£2,000 (typical UK 2026 range), and the number depends almost entirely on how far the nearest fibre is from your building. A site already passed by full fibre is cheap to connect; a premises needing a new dig can cost far more.

Where a build is unusually expensive, carriers sometimes quote an Excess Construction Charge on top. A good dedicated internet access provider checks for these before you sign, so there are no surprises after the order goes in. On longer contracts, install is frequently discounted or waived entirely to win the deal.

What determines the monthly price of a leased line?

Four factors set the monthly price: bandwidth, location, contract length and carrier availability. Of these, location does the heavy lifting — distance to the nearest exchange or Point of Presence drives the build cost, and build cost is amortised into your monthly rental. Urban sites with several carriers see the most competitive pricing.

• Bandwidth — circuits scale from 100Mbps to 100Gbps; you pay for the bearer (the port size) and the speed you light up on it.
• Location — the further the fibre has to travel, the higher the cost; multiple nearby carriers create price competition.
• Contract length — terms typically run 36–60 months; longer terms lower the monthly rate.
• Carrier availability — where Openreach, CityFibre and alt-nets all serve a postcode, you get the keenest quotes.

A leased line typically carries a 99.99% uptime SLA, and that guaranteed, symmetrical performance is the core of what you pay for. Compare that with UK broadband's average download speed of 69.4 Mbps (Ofcom Connected Nations 2024) — fast on paper, but shared, asymmetric and without a fix-time guarantee. If you want the full breakdown, see our leased line vs broadband comparison.

Are leased line prices falling in the UK?

Yes. Leased line prices have dropped considerably over the past decade as fibre networks have expanded and alt-net providers like CityFibre have entered urban markets. A 100Mbps circuit that cost £500–£700/month five years ago now costs from £69/month in well-served postcodes — a substantial fall driven almost entirely by competition.

That trend has further to run. The government's Project Gigabit programme is subsidising fibre into harder-to-reach areas, and Openreach is investing up to £15 billion to expand full fibre coverage to 25 million premises by December 2026 (Openreach's stated target). Fixed leased line connections still dominate the UK business internet market, with a share exceeding 39% (2025 UK data) — businesses keep choosing guaranteed connectivity, and more supply keeps nudging the price down.

For sites that can't yet get fibre, an FTTP leased line may be available now, or a backup connectivity circuit can bridge resilience while you wait for the main line.

Does a longer contract make a leased line cheaper?

Generally, yes. A 60-month contract typically costs 10–20% less per month than a 36-month term for the same circuit, and longer terms are where carriers waive installation. The trade-off is flexibility: a five-year commitment locks you in if your bandwidth needs change.

For most SMEs we recommend a 36-month term. It balances meaningful cost savings against the freedom to scale bandwidth as the business grows or to upgrade to SD-WAN across multiple sites. Sign a five-year deal only when you are certain the speed and the site won't change.

How can you get the best leased line price for your postcode?

Because location dominates pricing, the only way to know your real cost is a postcode-level quote across every carrier that serves your building. Pricing varies so much street to street that a single-carrier quote almost always leaves money on the table. Compare across providers, then factor in install, term and SLA — not just the headline monthly rate.

This is where a broker-led approach pays off. AMVIA checks pricing across multiple carriers for your exact postcode, sanity-checks for excess construction charges, and delivers connectivity and security from one accountable provider rather than a box-shifting reseller. One provider, security-first, Microsoft-certified.