In the last 12 months, the U.K. has overtaken Spain and Germany to rank first in terms of superfast broadband uptake among EU5 countries.

France and Italy, which make up the rest of the EU5, rank fourth and fifth respectively, according to Ofcom's annual European Broadband Scorecard, published on Wednesday. In 2013, the U.K. came in third.

The U.K. also comes out on top in terms of overall broadband uptake by household, online shopping, and weekly usage, the regulator said. The country also has the lowest proportion of people who have never used the Internet.

The availability of superfast broadband coverage has also increased from 60% in 2011 – good enough for third place – to 73%, putting the U.K. top of the pile.

"This is excellent progress for the U.K., but there is more to be done. We want to see even wider availability of superfast broadband across the U.K., so as many people as possible can enjoy faster speeds to access the Internet," said Ofcom CEO Ed Richards, in a statement.

"There is also more progress to be made to ensure consumers receive consistently high quality of service, including faster line repairs and installations for broadband and telephony," he said.

However, the U.K. might top the EU5, but the EU5 is no great shakes.

The FTTH Council Europe does not include the U.K. in its latest ranking of household uptake of fibre-to-the-home/building (FTTH/B) services, published in February, because it is below 1%.

According to Heavy Reading, a fibre market reaches maturity when the proportion of households subscribing to FTTH/B reaches 20%. So far nine countries have met that threshold, three of which – Lithuania, Sweden, and Latvia – are in Europe.

While it is encouraging to see the U.K. making progress, it still has a lot of work to do to catch up with the world's more advanced fixed broadband markets.