ONS 2020 Study – 2.7 Million UK Adults Have Not Used the Internet

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has today published their latest annual 2020 Internet Access report, which reveals that 5% (2.7 million) of UK adults have not used the internet in the past 3 months and that’s down from 7% (3.9 million) last year. Sadly issues of age and disability remain key barriers to adoption.

On the flip side 96% of households (95% if just counting people) in Great Britain had internet access, which is up from 93% in 2019 and 57% in 2006 when comparable records began. Similarly, 100% of people aged 16-34 classify themselves as “daily or almost daily” internet users, but this falls to 98% for those aged 35-44, 96% for those aged 45-54, 86% for those aged 55-64 and just 67% for those over the age of 65.

Some 85% of people considered to be disabled under the Equality Act also access the internet on a daily bases, although this falls to 91% for all disabled people. As for what we all do online, the top activity is still sending and receiving emails (85%), while the least popular activity is accessing personal public health records (8%).

However, on a separate table, it’s noted that 87% of all adults shopped online within the last 12 months, which is up from 53% in 2008; those aged 65 years and over had the highest growth in this area, rising from 16% to 65% over this period. The most common online purchase was for clothes, shoes and accessories, by 55% of adults, followed by deliveries from restaurants, fast-food chains or catering services, bought by 32% of adults.

We should point out that most of the data for this update was collected just before the COVID-19 crisis and lockdown hit (i.e. the data stems from January to February 2020), which might well have had a noticeable impact on some of the statistics. You can see a lot more stats by checking out the full report.

As we always say, not everybody wants to use the internet and nobody should force it on to those who don’t want or need it, but equally support should always exist for those who wish to give it a try. Admittedly this philosophy will become increasingly strained as the Government continues to extend its digital-by-default strategy and the COVID-19 crisis continues.

The fact that fixed line superfast broadband ISP or mobile broadband networks aren’t yet able to reach every single corner of the UK is another issue. The 10Mbps broadband USO was supposed to solve this but tens of thousands fall outside of the cost limits for that.