Unless you can advise otherwise, Virgin would involve disrupting the drive - not a route I’m currently comfortable with. 
ISPReview is always a good place to start your research. Your coverage needs are only likely to be guaranteed by the premium packages from the big providers though. When you go with smaller ones, you have the freedom to use your own equipment, and it’s often the expectation that will be the case too.
I actually think Sky are a really good provider for most people in terms of reliability/quality : price, and it might be worth considering staying put. Especially since they’re one of the few who will sell you whole home coverage as an add on.
Your alternative options are likely to be found in the likes of Zen and plus net, but I think Sky’s network and equipment is better.
There are more niche options in ISPs like IDNET and AAISP That will provide you with a better connection to the internet, but in the latter’s case, at a significantly higher premium, and a service more geared towards engineers than consumers. You’d need your own WiFi equipment with these providers too.
One of the good things about the U.K. is you have a lot of options to choose from to find the ISP that just suits you. The bad thing about the U.K. is you have a lot of options to choose from and it’s a minefield to navigate, and most are not very good. Double edged sword.
If I was giving someone like you advice, it would be to take the simplest option and stay put (especially if you’re in an area where they use their own backhaul as opposed to openreach). They’re generally a solid ISP at a fair price who can meet your every other need if the price hike puts them beyond your price range. But that can be haggled.
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Decision made 
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And I’ve just spoken to Sky CS and they’ve reduced the ongoing cost by 20%. Job done.
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Their sweet spot price wise is their Ultrafast (145Mb) package - that’s personally the minimum that I’d suggest you go for with them too.
I’m a tart with these things - although there are providers I am glad to get away from, Sky/Now haven’t been one of them. Their service is good, the speed is always what you need it to be.
The equipment they provide is crap but then all ISP gear is worse than what I already have so it’s not a consideration for me.
I’ve been with Onestream for the last year which has been… fine.
Before that I was with Sky FTTP, which was broadly the same all around, perhaps a tiny bit more resilient in peaks (though no outages with either, other than when Openreach changed the pole outside my house).
Before that I was with Now (Sky) FTTC, which I also found to be entirely adequate.
Before that I was with Virgin Media who I was glad to be rid of in the end as their service became very unreliable during lockdown. I could set my watch by some of the dropouts (0930 every weekday was one).
Before that I was with EE FTTC which was absolutely fine, no complaints except during my time there they moved from being ‘price competitive’ to being priced in line with BT. Their prices are now obscene, even for new customers, so I wouldn’t recommend them.
Before that VM again. Which must’ve been OK that time since I went back.
Before that I was with TalkTalk who’s customer service was very lacking - this was when I moved in here and I think it was the first time the line had broadband on it, so there was some installation issues but getting them to send an engineer proved harder than getting them to get me to leave penalty free, so I did that.
Then in the previous place I had FTTC from TalkTalk, BT and EE and before that was enabled LLU ADSL from EE, Sky, Plusnet and O2 Broadband. Nothing much to write home about there - although I remember being super happy when FTTC was enabled as it meant I went from 5Mbps on a good day to a rock-solid 38Mbps.
So in a nutshell my advice is, other than Virgin Media (which is patchy nationwide) you’re likely to be fine wherever you go, but Sky is certainly a decent enough choice - so long as you invest in your own network infrastructure so all you depend on them for is connectivity.
Thanks @WillPS , I’m sticking with Sky (with a discount). I’m intrigued about how I might improve things with a change in hardware….
I’ll be looking for further hand-holding, no doubt 
The main advantage, IMHO, is no longer being beholden to any ISP in terms of equipment.
I realised last time I was with EE that I was anxious about moving away despite the price rise because their router was better than the crap I’d had from VM/TalkTalk. I resolved to move and reinvest some of the savings in my own equipment. Now whenever I change ISP it’s just a matter of changing the configuration of my own router - none of my other devices are any the wiser.
Everything else stays the same. No more “but maybe the wifi will be crap” anxiety.
My equipment is now getting a little dated (no Wifi6 support, for example) but it does everything I need it to; it gets wireless to the whole of the house, updates itself, never needs restarting and when I do start getting bothered by its limitations I’ll have no qualms investing in my own equipment again. It easily pays for itself in terms of the savings of being a ‘new customer’ every year/18 months as opposed to being beholden to an ISP.
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If you have any wifi dead spots in your house you can easily improve coverage using your own mesh wifi system to provide multiple wifi access points instead of using the ISP-provided router for Wifi (I’m assuming here the ISP is not providing a mesh system; if they are you might not need to bother with your own).
Also, if you’re having other problems with the ISP-provided router you might be able to put the ISP router into modem mode (whether you can do this might vary between ISPs) and have your router or mesh wifi system act as the router.
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Sky and most ISPs do offer mesh integrations nowadays but by investing in theirs you’re essentially adding more barriers to being able to change in future. It’s a canny move on their parts.
So far as I know it’s just VM who offer this, mostly because there literally is no way of connecting to their network without their equipment AIUI.
If you take an Openreach provisioned FTTP they’ll install an ONT which essentially acts as you might expect a modem to; so long as your router supports the correct authorisation/connections options you can drop the provided router altogether. I tend to keep mine for troubleshooting purposes if ever I need to call support.
With FTTC you either have to obtain a fibre modem or turn off DHCP and wireless on the provided router and have your router treat it like a modem. This approach isn’t recommended but I did it for several months without any issues last time I had FTTC via Now (the Openreach modem I had died, and I knew I was going to be getting FTTP next time I moved so didn’t want to invest in another).
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Are they even offering FTTC anymore? When I was looking around December time, the only option seemed to be FTTP, at least in my area.
The other plus point about having your own mesh network is that they just need to drill the hole at the front door as everywhere else is on the mesh and it therefore doesn’t matter where they put their gear.
I hadn’t thought about that beforehand which is why I’m currently on Virgin but it means a move to something else when the contract runs out will be a doddle.
Yes, plenty of places with no FTTP still where FTTC or G.fast is the best option. Some unlucky souls still rely on ADSL/LLU.
In areas where FTTP rollout is complete Openreach have done ‘stop sell’, which means basically as you say the only option for new/moving customers becomes FTTP. This is the first step in a process which ultimately retires copper/aluminium telephony on that exchange altogether.
It is a bit of a pain really. The FTTC speed that we were getting was more than fast enough for us. Getting twice the speed for the same price is nice but, as I say, we don’t really need It.
Same. There is definitely cheaper FTTC options which you just can’t get if you’re on a stop sell exchange, annoyingly.
Thanks. Wasn’t aware of this. For the last 15 or so years I’ve only had Virgin Media.
When you drop off the contract, do they just double the price, or have they offered you more like the new customer rate?
Can’t remember what prices were like 10-15 years ago, but for the last 3 or so contracts I think I’ve been paying around £26-30/month for broadband, phone line, and basic TV (essentially just the freeview channels). Currently on £28/month. Have always needed to threaten to leave to get those prices though. I think it would go up to around £55/month if I let it run onto a rolling contract.
Just renewed yesterday with Virgin. I managed to get higher speeds and cheaper price than new customers.
I was paying £26/mo for 125Mbps which I got as a new customer plus a £90 Amazon voucher.
Yesterday I managed to get 250Mbps at £23/mo. New customers are currently given £27/mo.
I still had 29 days to go and had handed in my 30 days notice to leave the day before and the renewal offers they had for me were far expensive (£33-35).
I got a call yesterday and managed to bargain for that. He had given me 125Mbps at £22 which I was still hesitant to take then he asked to have another look and came up with the 250Mbps.
Virgin are the only ones in my area that do more than 64Mbps offered by OpenReach suppliers.
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I hate that. They all do It too. Yet they’ve forked out to get the guy out for the installation and supply the modem at the start. Second year, no cost to them but they seem to be under the impression that they can double the price.
Mind you, Plusnet managed to screw up my renewal payments so much that I ended up paying nothing for 15 months!
Never pay the default new customer prices with Virgin Media.
You can use a combination of bill credits, cashback sites and recommend a friend to get those prices down. Signing up for a mobile sim at the point of ordering gets a VOLT speed boost & you cancel the sim once it arrives. I also used to cancel/renegotiate each time they did an annual increase but they’ve baked those into the contract now.
I’m much happier off their network as I get 900mb up and down rather than 1.1gb down and 100mb up.