Internet Access Continues To Rise

The latest quarterly release about Internet access in the UK suggests that at the first quarter of 2013 86% of the UK population or 43.5m adults, had used the Internet. While the majority of the population have at some time used the Internet there are still some 7.1m adults or 14% of the population who have never used the Internet on the Q4 2012 though the number decreased by 4% or 325,000 people. The demographics of the survey suggest that the elderly and the disabled are less likely to have used the Internet.

Men are more likely to have used the Internet than women with 88% of men being users and 84% of women. Londoners are more likely than any other region to be Internet users with 90% of people in London using the Internet. The region with the lowest percentage of users was Northern Ireland still with 79%.

Disabled people are less likely to use the Internet. According to the definition used in the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 32% of disabled people or 3.7m disabled people have never used the Internet. This accounts for over 50% of non-users (53%).

The ONS survey covers people aged 16 and over. The number of Internet users continues to increase with an extra 2.4m added since the survey began.