Government Statistics Find 8.12 Million UK Adults Have Never Used the Internet

The governments Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released its latest Internet Access Quarterly Update (Q1-2012), which found that a total of 42.16 million UK adults have gone online (83.7% of the population, up from 83.5% in Q4-2011 and 82.9% in Q3-2011). As a result the number of adults who have never used the internet declined to 8.12 million (16.1%).

The change represents a quarterly fall of about 1% in the number of adults who have never gone online (-7.1% over the past year). The South East of England was also found to have the highest rate of Internet users (86.9%), while Northern Ireland had the lowest (75.1%). Men (86.1%) were also more likely to be Internet users than women (81.3%), although the difference is tiny. More highlights below.

ONS Q1-2012 Results Summary

Age

Almost all adults aged 16 to 24 years (98.6%) had used the Internet (7.16 million people). In contrast, only 27.4% of adults aged 75 years and over had ever used the Internet, representing 1.26 million people. The 3.35 million non-users aged 75 years and over made up 41.2% of the 8.12 million people who had never used the Internet at 2012 Q1.

There were small decreases in the numbers of non-users in all age groups apart from those aged 75 years and over, where there was an increase of 87,000 (2.7%) at 2012 Q1, compared with 2011 Q4.

Disability

At 2012 Q1, there were 4.04 million disabled adults, as defined by the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), who had never used the Internet. This represents 34.6% of those who were disabled and just under half of the 8.12 million adults who had never used the Internet. Of those adults who reported no disability, 10.6% (3.94 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, 6.9% (367,000) had never used the Internet. Internet use has almost reached full coverage for those earning in excess of £500 a week, with Internet use nearly 99% for all adults with weekly pay rates above this level.

It’s interesting to note that Northern Ireland had the lowest proportion of Internet users, especially since that part of the UK already has 97% coverage of superfast broadband services (Ofcom’s 2011 Broadband Speed Map). On the other hand NI has the lowest uptake of broadband (60%), the lowest average modem “sync” speeds (6.3Mbps) and the highest proportion of people who receive download speeds of less than 2Mbps (23%).

Internet Access Quarterly Update Q1-2012 (PDF)
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/rdit2/internet-access-quarterly-update/2012-q1/sbd-internet-access-2012-q1.pdf