I made a formal complaint to Sky about their use of 0844 numbers and this is their reply
"Thank you for your recent email regarding the use of 0844 numbers when contacting our Sky contact centres.
National rate numbers mean that customers pay the same rate - no matter where they are phoning from within the UK.
"Sky invests £250 million a year on customer service and, unlike many other providers, we’re open 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. You can call us for as little as 5p a minute from a BT landline (9.2p connection charge) at any time.
"One option that you may like to consider, if you haven’t already done so, would be signing up for our award winning Sky Talk service. As part of our Sky Talk packages, customers can call us for free in line with the tariff they have selected
"Finally, if you would prefer not to call but require advice or assistance, our Sky.com website hosts a massive range information available to our customers and includes the option to email our customer care team.
"Yours sincerely
"(name removed)
"Customer Relations"
At least they've updated their call price in paragraph 2 compared to the reply I got posted on page 60.