The head of BT’s infrastructure arm, Openreach, is to step down after nearly a decade, having almost completed a £12bn rollout of full fibre broadband to 25m homes.

Clive Selley, who was tasked by the former BT chief Philip Jansen to “build like fury” to address the UK’s status as global laggard in the introduction of high-speed broadband, will become the boss of BT’s international division.

Selley is being replaced by his deputy, Katie Milligan, who will decide on whether to further expand the fibre network to 30m homes by 2030.

The change in management is the latest in a shake-up by Allison Kirkby, BT’s first female boss, who has changed 10 of the 11 members of the telecoms group’s executive committee since she took over in February 2024.

After joining in 2016, Selley was tasked with upgrading the ageing Openreach network, which provides broadband across the UK, to full fibre.

The company is on track to pass its target of making full fibre broadband available to 25m homes by the end of this year.

There has long been speculation that BT may at some point look at selling a stake in, or all of, Openreach.

“Openreach is a critical national asset – the digital backbone of the UK – and a key driver of BT Group’s long‑term value,” said Kirkby. “Clive’s contribution at the helm of Openreach has been exceptional. His leadership – particularly the scale, pace and quality of the full fibre broadband build, has set new standards for our industry.”

Openreach has come under pressure in recent years from dozens of smaller broadband providers – “alt nets” such as CityFibre – and has forecast it will lose 850,000 customers in the year to the end of March. Openreach lost more than 800,000 customers in its last financial year.

In November, Selley told Ofcom that Openreach could scrap the final phase if the telecoms regulator went ahead with the draft proposal of the telecoms access review, which covers the period until 2030.

Openreach is unhappy with what it sees as unfair restrictions, such as pricing caps on what it can charge broadband companies such as Sky and TalkTalk to use its network, designed to curb its dominant position and encourage competition.

“The key thing for me is I would love to just finish the job,” said Milligan. “That is what Openreach has been about: can we build as far and wide as possible. That is not going to change. But we want to make sure we can get the right conditions to finish the job. There is not much [of the UK] that we won’t be able to get to. We want to get to as much as possible with fixed broadband.”

Overall, the UK’s global ranking for fixed broadband speed was 44th last year, the same as 2024, according to Ookla’s popular speed test database for benchmarking internet connections around the world.

Ofcom reported late last year that full fibre broadband coverage was available to 78% of households, about 23.7m homes. Gigabit broadband speed coverage, which includes cable broadband offered by Virgin Media O2, has reached 87%.

However, actual take-up of full fibre by consumers is considerably lower, with only 42% of homes that could take it opting to upgrade, according to Ofcom.

Selley is replacing Bas Burger, who is leaving BT in April after 18 years, including nine years on its executive committee.