The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) has issued its 2009 'Internet Access Households and Individuals' (.PDF format) report, which reveals that 18.31m UK households now have Internet access (70% of all households - an increase of 1.85m households since 2008).


The proportion of Internet equipped households with broadband also increased from 69% in 2006 to 90% in 2009, though this drops to 63% (up from 56% in 2008) when measuring against all households (with and without Internet access). The proportion of households able to access the Internet varied between UK regions, with London being the highest at 80% and Scotland the lowest on 62%.

37.4m adults (76% of the UK adult population) accessed the Internet in the 3 months prior to survey. This was an increase of 10.3% (3.5 million adults) from 2008. Subsequently, the number of adults who had never accessed the Internet fell to 10.2m (21%) in 2009. Men were 8% points more likely to have accessed the Internet in the last three months than women (80% v 72%).

In 2009, the proportion of adults who were recent Internet users - who accessed the Internet every day or almost every day - was 73% (27.3m adults). The 16-24 age group accessed the Internet the most, with 86% using it every day or almost every day. The 65+ age group used it the least, with 52% using it every day or almost every day.

The most popular activity of recent Internet users was sending and receiving emails, at 90%; social networking followed with 40% (up from 20% in 2008). In addition 42% of recent Internet users listened to web radio or watched web television (up from 34% in 2008). Internet telephone services were also popular with 21% communicating over this medium.

Finally in 2007 just under 700,000 people accessed the Internet via a Wi-Fi Hotspot (2% of recent Internet users), which rose to almost 2.5m (6% of recent users) in 2009.