As of January 2024, nearly 98 percent of the United Kingdom (UK) population used the internet. This figure has increased by around eight percent over the past five years. Overall, there were around 66 million internet users in the United Kingdom as of 2023.

From September to November 2023, Google.com was the leading website in the United Kingdom with more than 4.98 billion monthly visits. The search engine was also popular in its UK top-level domain, with Google.co.uk reaching 255 million views and placing tenth in the ranking. YouTube and Facebook were the most visited social media platforms, ranking second and fourth most visited websites in the country.

Smartphones have pulled away from laptops to become the most important device used to access the internet for close to half of those accessing the internet in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020. In 2020, significantly more people identified smartphones as their most important device for accessing the internet, compared with those that nominated each of the large display formats combined.

Increasing use of mobile data

As phone displays and mobile data infrastructure improve, mobile phone users are consuming more data than ever before. From 2015 to 2018, the volume of data consumed in the UK increased from 7.29 million gigabytes to 211 million gigabytes. The average consumption per sim card has increased from .87 GB to 1.9 GB over the same period. Despite the increase in consumption, mobile service providers have not seen an increase in revenue from data services, generating 1.73 billion British pounds in 2017, exactly the same amount as they generated from mobile data services in 2010.

Next-gen communications  

4G currently offers the fastest means of downloading data using a mobile device, but 5G looks set to blow 4G out of the water in the coming years. Once 5G capable devices are more widely available and more affordable, it is expected that there will be 155 million 5G subscribers in Western Europe by 2024. 

Internet use in the UK annual estimates by age, sex, disability, ethnic group, economic activity and geographical location, including confidence intervals.

As of March 2024, smartphone usage was high for women and men in the United Kingdom, with 78 percent of female and 72 percent of male internet users accessing the internet on their mobile devices, respectively. PC or laptop usage was higher for men the women in the UK, with around 17 percent of men and nine percent of women accessing the internet via PC or laptop.

Statistics of how many adults access the internet and use different types of technology covering:

home internet access

how people connect to the web

how often people use the web/computers

whether people use mobile devices

whether people buy goods over the web

whether people carried out specified activities over the internet

For more information see the ONS website and the UKDS website.

Annual data on internet usage in Great Britain, including how households connect to the internet, internet activities and internet purchasing.

Forecast: Households with Internet Access at Home in the UK 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

The percentage of households with internet access in the United Kingdom was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 2.4 percentage points. After the seventh consecutive increasing year, the internet penetration is estimated to reach 99.01 percent and therefore a new peak in 2029. Depicted is the share of housholds with internet access in the country or region at hand.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

Forecast: Households With Internet Access at Home in East Midlands (UK) 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

This statistic shows the usage of internet access connections in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2021, by connection type. As of 2022, 94 percent of respondents accessed the internet via fixed broadband through a phone line or cable service, perhaps using a Wi-Fi router. It is clear that the trend of having broadband internet access at homes has been increasing throughout the years.In the United Kingdom (UK), the share of households with broadband internet connection has increased by more than 100 percent in the last decade.

The population share with mobile internet access in the United Kingdom was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 2.8 percentage points. After the fifteenth consecutive increasing year, the mobile internet penetration is estimated to reach 86.56 percent and therefore a new peak in 2029. Notably, the population share with mobile internet access of was continuously increasing over the past years.The penetration rate refers to the share of the total population having access to the internet via a mobile broadband connection.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

This table shows whether people aged 16 or over have ever used or never used the internet by a range of variables such as age, ethnicity, pay, occupation, qualifications, and disability.

The question asked in the Labour Force Survey is "When did you last use the internet?" This question is only asked to people aged 16 and over. The first time this data was available was 2011 Q1.

At borough level the data showed ever used or never used. For London and Rest of UK the data is broken down by a range of indicators, including 5 year age group, 9 ethnic groups, 8 weekly pay categories, 9 occupation levels, 7 qualification levels, and 3 disability categories.

The APS sampled around 333,000 people in the UK (around 27,000 in London). As such all figures must be treated with some caution.

Data was supplied directly by ONS under request from the Greater London Authority. Numbers rounded to the nearest thousand.

Other Internet Access data can be found on the ONS website. This is national data based on the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey.

The statistic shows the percent of households in the United Kingdom that have some form of internet connection. In 1998, when this survey initiated, only 9 percent of households had internet connection. As of 2018, that number has increased significantly to 89 percent of households that have access to the internet. The market penetration was highest in this year.

United Kingdom E Commerce: Internet Access: 1000+ Employees data was reported at 99.600 % in 2016. This records an increase from the previous number of 98.900 % for 2015. United Kingdom E Commerce: Internet Access: 1000+ Employees data is updated yearly, averaging 99.550 % from Dec 2007 (Median) to 2016, with 10 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 99.600 % in 2016 and a record low of 98.900 % in 2015. United Kingdom E Commerce: Internet Access: 1000+ Employees data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office for National Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.S032: E Commerce: Proportion of Businesses With Internet Access and Type of Connection.

Estimates of adult Internet users and non-users in the UK, by age, sex, disability, region, gross weekly pay, ethnicity and when adults last used the Internet.

As of March 2021, the digital population of the United Kingdom was counting approximately 10.6 million unique users on smartphones who were aged 55 years or older. UK users aged between 18 and 24 years old accessing the internet via smartphones were 5.3 million, while the number grew to 8.5 million in the case of users aged between 25 and 24 years old. UK internet users aged 55 and above also made up the largest demographic group for internet access on tablet devices, counting 8.3 million users.

This publication has been discontinued as a result of the ONS Consultation on Statistical Products, 2013. The last edition of the Internet Access Quarterly Update was published on 14 May 2014, for Q1 2014. ONS will conduct a public consultation on future plans for the annual publication of estimates of Internet users and this will appear on the ONS public consultation page:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/get-involved/consultations/open-consultations/index.html

Source agency: Office for National Statistics

Designation: National Statistics

Language: English

Alternative title: Internet Access Quarterly Update