ONS Finds 6.3 Percent of UK Adults Have Not Used the Internet
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has today published their latest annual 2021 Internet Users report, which reveals that 6.3% of adults (3.36 million) in the UK had never used the internet in 2020 (down from 7.5% in the prior year). As usual the lack of adoption is highest among the oldest adults and those with disabilities.
Almost all adults aged 16 to 44 years in the UK were considered to be recent internet users (99%), compared with 54% of adults aged 75 years and over. But the proportion of those aged 75 years and over who are recent internet users has nearly doubled since 2013, from 29%, to 54% in 2020.
Meanwhile, the number of disabled adults who were recent internet users in 2020 reached almost 11 million (81% of disabled adults), which is up from just over 10 million (78% of disabled adults) in 2019. Finally, London continued to be the UK region with the highest recent internet use (95%) in 2020, while Northern Ireland remained the lowest at 88%.
As we always say, not everybody wants to use the internet and nobody should force it upon 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 stretched by the current COVID-19 crisis and the Government’s ongoing digital-by-default strategy.
The fact that fixed line superfast broadband or mobile broadband networks aren’t yet able to reach every single corner of the UK is another issue.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
« Full Fibre UK ISP Hyperoptic Appoints Ex-Three Chief as CFO UPDATE
Latest UK ISP News
- FTTP (5530)
- BT (3518)
- Politics (2542)
- Openreach (2298)
- Business (2266)
- Building Digital UK (2247)
- FTTC (2045)
- Mobile Broadband (1977)
- Statistics (1790)
- 4G (1668)
- Virgin Media (1621)
- Ofcom Regulation (1465)
- Fibre Optic (1396)
- Wireless Internet (1391)
- FTTH (1382)
Too many child poverty in UK, the highest ever. Parents can’t afford internet. Blame the government.
Everyone has accesss to Internet theres alot of child poverty in the UK nearly all parents can afford Internet nowadays without intetnet you cant watch on demand TV etc…
Who watches freeview 6.3 parcent is still low look at most migrants they use whatsapp, imo etc.. To call back home my dad does
How is child poverty preventing the over 75s from using the internet?
Never like UK at all. You pay too much household bills: council tax, income tax, national insurance, mortgage, house insurance, car insurance, life insurance, water rent, phone line rental, broadband bill, car road tax, car park fee at shopping and hospital, prescription fee, dental charge bill, eyes test fee, M.O.T fee, car servicing, car parts with labour charge fee, car fuel cost, gas & electricity bill, tv license fee, mobile phone monthly fee, foods cost. After that, nothing left! Just like working life for nothing!
Bloody UK
In my opinion there’s not enough taxes 😉
The rich people’s should pay more taxes!
Solution is to try and ensure your income leaves some money left over each month.
Rich people paying more in tax isn’t going to help with most of this. The tax free allowance is pretty high already and the taxpayer shouldn’t be paying mortgages, car payments, etc.
That’s an argument for higher wages more than higher taxes.
Absolutely, the 1% should be paying 90% of the taxes, instead we have those earning under £30k a year paying the most.
Hardly. In between the super rich that can avoid tax and those on low incomes are various people paying a fair amount of tax via PAYE.
The Scandinavian socially democratic nations have high rates of tax across the board rather than rinsing higher earners only for good reasons. The UK is unusual in its reliance on the top few percent for so much of the income tax.
Either way however much tax people pay it won’t go towards car or mortgage payments.
@john in what economy is everything free? Too used to downloading free apps and expect everything to be the same?
What is your job, what does your company make or do? I assume that you don’t just give away your products or services for free? If they did where would they get the money to pay your wage?
Yet somehow Boris wants to level up the country, yet out four nations are still lacking on internet again for another year
Our*
I wonder how many of those were “I don’t use the internet, I only use Facebook/Whatsapp/The world wide web/Chrome/Something” type misunderstandings.