PRICE
The winner = Virgin Media
These premium providers are similar to each other in price – think towards the more expensive end – but Virgin Media offers mega fast speeds at a slightly lower cost.
We compared their cheapest packages. At the time of writing, Virgin Media’s lowest cost plan starts at £26 per month for its 132Mbps average download speed package, which is actually very good value for such fast broadband.
Sky's cheapest plan is actually also a very decent £28 for 145Mbps speed.
Sky rather confusingly has slower plans too - 36Mbps (£40), 61Mbsp (£28) and 100Mbps (£41) - which are more expensive than its cheapest 145Mbps (£28). These more expensive and slower plans would probably only be picked if a customer's home didn't yet have full fibre access. You can find this out by putting your postcode into our deal checker.
Where Virgin really outshines Sky is on the pricing of its speediest package. Sky's fastest plan is £44 a month and offers speeds of 900Mbps. Virgin's is an incredible 1130Mbps and costs £40.99. Does anyone really need these huge speeds and the ability to connect to 120+ digital devices at the same time? Probably not, but it's nice to have that peace of mind.
Virgin Media broadband does occasionally offer rewards as incentives, but these differ from the cashback reward cards. Instead they either run a form of sale, offering lower monthly bills than the standard price. Or, they offer cashback in the form of a bill credit. The money then gets simply taken off your bill.
Sky rewards
Sometimes you can get lucky with your switch and get a cashback incentive reward (normally a pre-paid credit card with a value between £50-100) or a free gift when signing up. This will all depend on postcode and package.
SPEED
The winner = Virgin Media
Both Sky and Virgin Media deliver ultrafast fibre broadband. But at this moment in time, Virgin Media can officially claim to be the UK’s fastest widely available broadband. It can offer everyone that can access its network (currently about 50% of UK properties) its fastest package of an incredible 1130Mbps Gig service. This is because it uses its own cabling network rather than like the majority of others who rely on Openreach. In comparison, Sky’s fastest available speed is 900Mbps.
Sky's partial fibre plans (available to 96% of the UK) are: 36Mbps and 61Mbps. And for those who can access its full fibre network (currently about 57% of the UK) Sky can supply full fibre speeds of 100Mbps, 500Mbps and 900Mbps.
In comparison, Virgin offers: 50Mbps, 100Mbps, 200Mbps, 350Mbps, 500Mbps and 1130Mbps.
So currently you can get more choice of quicker speeds for lower prices with Virgin Media if its network is available to your home.
AVAILABILITY
The winner = Sky
Sky uses Openreach network to deliver its service. Just about anyone in the UK has access to this. It doesn’t mean you can necessarily get the fastest speeds yet as some of this network is still partial fibre (speeds of 30 - 70Mbps), but it does mean that most households can at least access a very satisfactory 64Mbps. This is growing every day and they’ve pledged to deliver full fibre to 25 million homes and businesses by 2026.
The Virgin Media network is entirely separate. Its installed, operated and owned entirely by Virgin using different tech to all the other providers. So while the advantage is that it can deliver much faster speeds, the flipside is that it is available to far less. Currently its network is available to about half of homes in the UK.
The other disadvantage of Virgin Media being on an entirely separate network is that if switching to or from, you’ll probably need to have an engineer visit rather than just being able to plug a router in.
PACKAGES
Winner = Virgin
Both offer a wide range of packages to choose from. But as discussed, Virgin is currently slightly better value for the speeds you get.
Virgin also pips Sky on flexibility. Both provider’s main contracts are 18 months, but Virgin also offers short-term solutions of one-month, rolling contracts. Although these shorter term plans will always be on the pricier side.
Both providers offer broadband with no landline rental for those who really don’t have any requirements.
All packages from Virgin Media and Sky are truly unlimited. This means you really can use the internet as much as you like without being deliberately slowed down or incurring any extra charges.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Winner = Sky
Virgin Media performed fairly poorly for customer service in a recent Which? survey.
It received a disappointing satisfaction score of 38 (out of a possible +100) for overall customer service. Its scores for technical support and the ease and speed of getting in touch weren’t great either, with a 34 and 26, also out of 100.
The latest Ofcom report also shows that Virgin Media could do better in this department. Recording the lowest overall mark for ‘satisfaction of complaint handling’ with a score of 46% (industry average 51%), 66 complaints per 100,000 subscribers to Ofcom (industry average 44) and an average call waiting time of 3:07 (industry average 2:37).
In contrast, according to the latest Ofcom report of October 2023, Sky Broadband generated the fewest complaints at 5 per 100,000 subscribers. And Sky’s average call waiting time for customer support is 2 minutes 14 seconds.
Add-on TV & phone services
Winner = Sky
It's an extremely tight match between the TV titans. Both offer every type of sport, TV channel and movie you could ever dream of.
TV
Virgin's excellent 360 box gives access to hundreds of channels and 4K too. You can get streaming platforms like Netflix and Disney through here too as an extra. Sky cinema and Sky Sports channels can also be included as an add-on.
Sky wins though, just. Its viewing services Sky Stream, sky Q and Sky Glass allow even more advanced tech and control over how you watch your television. And it's winning blow is delivered through having exclusive access to Sky Atlantic, which is the only place to watch HBO shows like: True Detective, Game of Thrones and Succession. You can’t access this on Virgin Media.
Phone
There’s very little difference when it comes to these providers' call packages.
Sky and Virgin Media automatically include a phone line with pay-as-you-go calls in every plan. With Virgin Media you can opt not to have a phone line, but this doesn’t make it cost any less. Then there are bolt-on extra options for inclusive call plans which both have the options for: evening and weekend, anytime and international. Virgin Media is very slightly cheaper.
ROUTERS
The winner = tie
We couldn’t call it! They are both decent bits of kit with similar capabilities.
Sky broadband routers
Sky offers two broadband routers – the Sky Broadband Hub, and the more newly released Sky Max Hub. The Sky Broadband Hub comes as standard, whatever plan you pick. And any customers can upgrade to the latest router, the Sky Max Hub.
Virgin Media routers
Bear with us on this, as it can all get slightly confusing…
Virgin Media broadband comes with one of four routers, either the Hub 3, the Hub 4, the Hub 5 or the Hub 5x. However, Virgin Media don’t actually tell you which router goes with which plan. Most packages come with either the Hub 3 or the Hub 4, and to which you get seems to come down to availability at the time of order.
Anyone taking out Virgin’s fastest Gig1 and Gig2 packages will be sent the latest routers, the Hub 5 and 5x, both which support Wi-Fi 6.
So, in the interest of fairness, we’ll compare the most common router, The Hub 4, as this currently goes out to the majority of new Virgin customers.
Sky router Vs Virgin Media router
There is actually very little to choose from between these two. Both routers are on 802.11ac Wi-Fi (also known as Wi-Fi 5). This is a standard that’s now a few years old and delivers reasonably fast connectivity. Both connect to up to 64 devices at once and they both have four gigabit ethernet ports so you can connect up to four wired devices directly to get the optimum speed. The Sky Broadband Hub offers dual-band wireless with eight internal antennae, which is one more than Virgin Media’s Hub 4 and this might give slightly more coverage.
Extra coverage options
When it comes to concerns about your Wi-Fi signal, both providers offer an upgrade solution. Sky WiFi Max is the provider's new Wi-Fi guarantee, promising minimum speeds over wireless of up to 25Mbps. However, the add-on also bundles a new router, the Sky Max Hub which supports the latest Wi-Fi 6. This all costs around an extra £3-6.50 a month.
Virgin Media offers its WiFi Max for those needing extra coverage. It promises minimum speeds over wireless of up to 30Mbps in every room. The technology is run by mesh boosters and Wi-Fi pods that can be plugged into power outlets. This costs around an extra £8 a month (or free with Giga packages).
Sorry, we just couldn't pick! Normally we can choose, but this is just too close to call.
Both give an amazing range of TV packages coupled with top rate technology to watch these with.
They are similar in price, although Virgin is slightly cheaper. Virgin also has the faster speeds, but isn't as widely available and operates on a different network to all other providers which comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.
But in terms of convenience and customer service, Sky took the balance back and performed better in both these categories.
Still unsure? Compare Virgin and Sky deals and see if there's a standout offer to help you decide.
