Can’t speak for VDSL in general as that is only available here as part of a fibre offering. But we are a rural area, officially classed as a hamlet rather than a village, and I can promise you we were among the last to get Fibre (FTTC). Pretty much an afterthought, in fact.
Well yeah I didnt mean every single rural area was ahead of every single urban area, but a lot of the first VDSL areas were not urban. In my county villages got it before the city. The city only got it when my MP stepped in. I was surprised to read only 2 months ago that part of my city is still ADSL only, with spotty cable coverage, as you can imagine that spotty cable coverage is really congested as well from reports, as it has only ADSL as its competition.
What I have observed so far on FTTP, is its not the same as VDSL, the biggest UK cities have been announced in early plans, but what I see as a potential problem is smaller cities and towns get left out commercially as they not big enough, but at the same time they also left out of government programs because those focus on rural.
So for me I would like to see the government concentrate on non commercially viable areas rather than specifically rural as there is non commercially viable urban/suburban areas as well.