We report on Brillouin‐scattering measurements of thermally excited surface acoustic phonons, and bulk and surface magnons, in quenched ribbons of ferromagnetic metallic glasses with compositions Fe100−xBx(x=14–28), Fe76Mo4B20, FexNi80−xB20(x=20–60), and Co75−xFexSi15B10(x=0–6). Room‐temperature surface‐phonon velocity is found to increase monotonically with increasing B in FeB, and with increasing Fe in FeNiB. The velocity is almost 10% less in Fe76Mo4B20than in Fe80B20. The phonon velocity is not field dependent, even in compositions where large &Dgr;Eeffects occur. Thegfactor, determined from the slope of surface‐magnon frequency with field, is 2.09±0.02 for Fe100−xBx. The intensity of surface‐ and bulk‐magnon scattering is independent of magnetostriction in CoFeSiB.