Fewer than one in ten UK adults now smoke, but the rate is five times higher without qualifications

Smoking has fallen from 20.2% of adults in 2011 to 9.8% in 2025, a drop of more than half. The fall has been steepest among the young. The gap between the least and most qualified has not closed.

Noodle News data desk · reading time ~3 min

9.8%

of UK adults smoked in 2025, about 4.9 million people

24.8%

of adults with no qualifications smoked, against 4.7% of those with a degree

7.2%

of 18 to 24 year olds smoked, down from 25.7% in 2011

What the data shows

Prevalence has more than halved since 2011

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that 9.8% of UK adults aged 18 and over smoked in 2025, about 4.9 million people. In 2011 the figure was 20.2%, so prevalence fell by 10.4 percentage points and is now 48.5% of its 2011 level.¹ Men (11.3%) were more likely to smoke than women (8.2%). By nation, the rate was 9.5% in England, 9.9% in Northern Ireland, 11.1% in Wales and 11.4% in Scotland.¹

The fall is largest among the youngest adults. Among 18 to 24 year olds it went from 25.7% to 7.2%, a drop of 18.5 points, which leaves that group tied with the over-65s as the lowest of any age band. The highest rate is now in the 45 to 54 band, at 12.4%.¹

Exhibit 01

Smoking fell fastest among the young

Source: ONS Annual Population Survey, UK adults aged 18 and over, 2011 and 2025. Only these two years are shown because they are the years the bulletin text states for both groups.¹

Who still smokes

The gap by qualification is more than twenty points

Among adults with no qualifications, 24.8% smoked in 2025. For those with GCSE grades A* to C or equivalent the figure was 14.9%, and for those with a degree or equivalent it was 4.7%. The highest to lowest ratio is 5.3 to 1, a gap of 20.1 points.¹ Work status shows a similar split: 16.5% of unemployed adults smoked, against 11.1% of economically inactive adults and 8.7% of those in paid employment.¹

Exhibit 02

Smoking by highest qualification, 2025

Source: ONS Annual Population Survey, UK adults aged 18 and over, 2025. The dashed line is the all-adult rate.¹

Key finding. The national rate is below one in ten, but among adults with no qualifications about one in four still smokes. The ONS bulletin shows no time series by qualification in its text, so this piece does not say whether that gap has widened or narrowed.

Alongside smoking

Vaping is flat overall and rising among 25 to 34 year olds

A separate ONS survey, the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey, covers Great Britain and people aged 16 and over. It puts current smoking at 8.7% in 2025, against 9.1% in 2024, and daily or occasional e-cigarette use at 9.9%, essentially unchanged from 10.0%. The ONS says this survey is not its official smoking estimate.¹ Among 25 to 34 year olds, vaping rose from 8.6% in 2020 to 12.9% in 2024 and 16.4% in 2025. About 2.9% of people who have never smoked vape, around 1.1 million people.¹

Exhibit 03

E-cigarette use, 25 to 34 year olds

Source: ONS Opinions and Lifestyle Survey, Great Britain, aged 16 and over; the 25 to 34 band, 2020, 2024 and 2025. The years between 2020 and 2024 are not given in the bulletin text, so the line joins the published points only.¹

What we don't know

The bulletin text gives 2011, 2024 and 2025 for all adults, so the path in between, and whether the latest 0.8-point fall (10.6% to 9.8%) is larger than survey error, is not shown here. It does not give qualification or work-status rates for earlier years. The vaping figures come from a different survey, with a different population, so they cannot be netted against the smoking figures, and nothing here shows whether anyone swapped one for the other.

Caveat. These are survey estimates, not a count. The strongest objection to the headline is that a rate of 9.8% sits close to the line between "one in ten" and "fewer than one in ten", and the survey margin could straddle it. The ONS bulletin text gives no confidence interval for the national rate. The comparison with 2011, a halving, is far larger than any plausible survey error, and that is the claim this piece rests on.

Method. Smoking prevalence figures are the ONS Annual Population Survey (APS) estimates for UK adults aged 18 and over, transcribed from the ONS bulletin on 12 October 2026. Derived figures (the 10.4-point fall, 48.5% of the 2011 level, the 18.5-point fall among 18 to 24 year olds, the 5.3 to 1 and 20.1-point qualification gap) were computed in code and checked against the published 10.4 and 18.5-point falls. E-cigarette and alternative smoking figures come from the ONS Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN), Great Britain, aged 16 and over, and are kept separate from the APS figures. No projections are used.

Sources.

T1Office for National Statistics, Adult smoking habits in the UK: 2025, released 6 October 2026; retrieved 12 October 2026.

Corrections. v1.1 (20 Oct 2026): on phone screens the dashed reference line in Exhibit 2 ran through the chart’s value labels; the labels now sit on top of it. No figures changed.

Figures to 12 Oct 2026. Noodle News · v1.1 · uk-smoking-below-one-in-ten.