Some 86% of the UK Population or 43.5 Million Adults Have Gone Online

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have today published their latest Internet Access Quarterly Update Q1-2013, which reveals that the number of adults in the United Kingdom that have NEVER gone online has shrunk from 7.42 million (15%) in Q4-2012 to 7.1 million (14%) in the last quarter.

Elsewhere men (88% – up from 87% in Q4-2012) remain more likely to be Internet users than women (84% – up from 83% in Q4-2012), though the gap is closing. Age and disability are also important factors. Nearly all adults aged 16-24 years (99% – unchanged) have used the Internet (7.1 million people), yet only 34% of those aged 75 years+ have gone online (up from 31% in Q4-2012).

In addition 3.7 million disabled adults have never used the Internet (down from 3.8 million in Q4-2012), which represents 32% of those who were disabled and over half (53%) of the 7.1 million adults who had never used the Internet.

How much people earn also remains a key factor in whether or not people go online. Some 5% (284,000 – down from 300,000 in Q4-2012) of people whose gross weekly pay was less than £200 per week have never used the internet but nearly all of those earning in excess of £500 a week do go online (98%).

Lastly London continues to have the highest rate of Internet users (90%), while Northern Ireland is home to the lowest (79%). As usual there are many reasons why people choose not to go online and we should remember that many still see no need for it; we shouldn’t force the online world upon them. Never the less it’s clear that the number of people without an internet connection is slowly falling.

Internet Access Quarterly Update Q1-2013 (PDF)
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_310435.pdf