ONS Q2 2012 Report Finds 7.82 Million UK Adults Have Never Gone Online

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released its latest Internet Access Quarterly Update Q2-2012, which found that a total of 42.52 million UK adults have gone online (84% of the population; up from 83.7% in Q1). The number of adults who have never used the internet has thus declined since Q1 by -4% to 7.82 million (16%).

The data found that the South East and London had the highest rate of internet users (88%; up from 86.9% in Q1), while Northern Ireland had the lowest (77%; up from 75.1% in Q1). Elsewhere Men (87%; up from 86.1% in Q1) were still more likely to be internet surfers than Women (82%; up from 81.3% in Q1), although the difference is fairly small. More highlights below.

Internet Access Quarterly Update Q2-2012 Summary

Age

Almost all adults aged 16 to 24 years (99%) have at some point used the Internet (7.17 million people). In contrast, only 29% of adults aged 75 years and over had ever used the Internet, representing 1.33 million people. The 3.3 million non-users aged 75 years and over made up 42% of the 7.82 million people who had never used the Internet at 2012 Q2.

Disability

At 2012 Q2, there were 3.91 million disabled adults, as defined by the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), who had never used the Internet. This represents 34% of those who were disabled and just under half of the 7.82 million adults who had never used the Internet. Of those adults who reported no disability, 10% (3.77 million adults) had never used the Internet. This indicates that individuals with a disability are approximately three times more likely never to have used the Internet than individuals with no disability.

Earnings

Of those adults in employment whose gross weekly pay was less than £200 per week, 7% (355,000) had never used the Internet. Internet use has almost reached full coverage for those earning in excess of £500 a week, with Internet use around 98 to 99% for all adults with weekly pay rates above this level.

Interestingly most adults are fairly recent internet users. Some 97% of those whom have ever gone online did so within the three months prior to ONS’s interview.

Internet Access Quarterly Update Q2-2012 (PDF)
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_276208.pdf