VS Series
BT v Sky
Broadband, TV and your monthly bill: who comes out on top?
BT leads on turnover, pre-tax profit, profit margin and net assets; Sky on growth. BT is the biggest by turnover at £19,654m, against £10,541m at Sky. BT keeps more of every £100 it takes, £10.60 as pre-tax profit.
The year ends are close enough to compare like for like. BT files group accounts that include subsidiaries; Sky files for a single company, which flatters the group on size.
Accounts compared: BT to Mar 2026 · Sky to Dec 2025
Who they are
BT
British Telecommunications Limited · 01800000British Telecommunications is the main operating company of BT Group, providing broadband, mobile, TV and phone services to homes and businesses in the UK.In brief: broadband, mobile and TV · consumer and business contracts · owns Openreach · owned by BT GroupFull profile →Sky
Sky UK Limited · 02906991Sky provides pay television, broadband, mobile and home phone services to households in the UK and Ireland.In brief: pay TV and broadband · subscriptions and advertising · Sky Sports and Sky News · owned by ComcastFull profile →The Numbers
The leader on each measure is marked. Movements are against each company's own prior year. Pre-tax profit is filed except where marked (est.). Sky UK's pre-tax profit of £931m includes £1,254m of dividends from its own subsidiaries; its operating profit, from trading, was £7m on £10,541m of revenue (Sky UK accounts, pp. 18 and 32).
Category winners
The Takeaway
- BT converts the most of its turnover. Of every £100, £10.60 reaches pre-tax profit, against £8.83 at Sky.
- BT is the largest on the top line, £19,654m of turnover, 1.9x Sky's £10,541m.
- Sky is growing fastest, turnover +1.4% on its own prior year. BT went backwards.
- Sky is the biggest employer with 9,901 people; Sky pays the most per head, an average staff cost of about £92,000.
- BT has the largest balance sheet, net assets of £24,990m.
Who keeps the most of every £100 of sales?
BT keeps the most: £10.60 of every £100 of turnover becomes pre-tax profit. Sky keeps the least, £8.83.
Financing bites hardest at BT: £7.12 of every £100 goes on interest.
Every profit figure here is the one the company filed.
The chart splits each company's turnover into £100: what goes on people, on interest and on everything else, and what is left as profit.
Out of every £100 of turnover
Each column is £100 of that company's own turnover, so companies of any size compare on one scale; the figures are pounds out of each £100, not millions. Companies run from the best margin to the worst. Payroll is staff costs, financing is interest paid, other running costs are everything else, and profit is pre-tax profit, filed or estimated as marked in the table. A loss is not an extra cost: it is the part of the costs that runs past the £100 line, marked with a red bracket. Hover over any segment for its figure.
Who is the biggest, and does the comparison hold?
By turnover the order is BT (£19,654m), Sky (£10,541m).
By headcount, Sky leads with 9,901 employees.
The accounting periods all end within 3 months of each other. The bases differ: group accounts include the businesses a company owns, single-company accounts do not.
Turnover on the latest filing
Who is growing fastest?
Sky grew fastest, turnover +1.4% on its own prior year, ahead of BT (-3.5%).
Turnover change on each company's own prior year
Who employs the most, who pays the most, and who brings in the most per head?
Sky employs the most, 9,901 people.
Sky has the highest average staff cost, about £92,000 a head.
Sky brings in the most turnover per employee, about £1.1m. It says as much about the business model as the workforce: a marketplace or a wholesaler needs far fewer people per pound than a restaurant or a gym.
Who owns each one?
Ownership as recorded on the Companies House register of people with significant control, in the bands the register uses.
Held by Bt Group Investments Limited
A company recorded as a person with significant control. 24 outstanding charges on the register.
Who owns BT →
Sky UK Limited · 02906991Held by Sky Limited
A company recorded as a person with significant control. 4 outstanding charges on the register.
Who owns Sky →
What does the full ledger show?
| Measure | BT | Sky |
|---|---|---|
| Registered name | BRITISH TELECOMMUNICATIONS LIMITED | SKY UK LIMITED |
| Company number | 01800000 | 02906991 |
| Incorporated | 1984 | 1994 |
| Accounts filed | 26 June 2026 | 2 October 2026 |
| Turnover, prior year | £20,358m | £10,396m |
| Pre-tax profit, prior year | £2,061m | £253m |
| Staff costs | £4,540m | £907m |
| Payroll share of turnover | 23.1% | 8.6% |
| Employees, prior year | 91 | 10,179 |
| Dividends paid | £1,500m | n/d |
| Charges outstanding | 24 | 4 |
A figure the filing does not disclose is shown as n/d; a zero in a filing is treated as not disclosed. Rounding: below £0.1m in thousands, £0.1m to £2m to one decimal place, above that to the nearest million.
BT v Sky: common questions
Who is the biggest of BT or Sky?
BT, with turnover of £19,654m in the year to March 2026.
Which makes the most profit?
BT: £2,084m pre-tax in the year to March 2026.
Which employs the most people?
Sky, with 9,901 employees in its latest accounts.
BT or Sky: which is bigger?
BT, with turnover of £19,654m against £10,541m at Sky on their latest filings. On margin, BT keeps more of each £100 as pre-tax profit. The full head to head is in the VS Series. Read the VS page →
Where do these figures come from?
Each company's latest accounts filed at Companies House. Each links to its full Spark Intel profile, which names the filing it comes from.
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