What changes when 300 dbt users at Virgin Media O2 move to dbt v2 and dbt State
Virgin Media O2 cut dbt compute costs 30% and model run times 35% by adopting dbt v2 and dbt State at scale.
Overview
Virgin Media O2 has 42 million customers, 300 dbt users, 100 dbt projects, and spends millions of dollars in compute annually. At that scale, inefficiency isn't a nuisance. It's a cost.
What you'll take away
- 01
dbt State skipped rebuilding what hadn't changed: on a 1,424-model job, only 1,392 models needed to rerun, cutting runtime 35% and BigQuery slot consumption by roughly 25%.
- 02
The migration validated real numbers at enterprise scale: about 30% lower compute costs, beating the original 20% target, plus 35% faster runs and 25% less CI/CD dependency.
- 03
The biggest cost wasn't on a spreadsheet: lost developer hours from context switching and rework, which the team tracked right alongside compute savings.
Session speakers
Melissa Simpson
Virgin Media O2Gordon Curzon
Virgin Media O2