Fewer than one in seven people in Britain are now smokers

Fewer than one in seven people in Britain are now smokers as rate plummets down from half of adults in the 1970s, says study

  • 6.9 million people in the UK, 14.1 per cent of over 18s smoked a cigarette last year
  • Fifty years ago around half the population were reckoned to be smokers
  • ONS found smoking habits of high and low earners has widened ‘significantly’

The number of smokers in the UK has continued to fall, with fewer than one in seven still keeping the habit, data released today has shown. 

A study by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that 6.9 million people in the UK, 14.1 per cent of the population over 18, smoked cigarettes last year, down from 14.7 in 2018.

The proportion of tobacco users has declined fast since 2011, when more than one in five people were cigarette smokers. 

The amount of smokers who have quit, all persons aged 16 years and above, has overtaken the number of current smokers. 

Pictured: A graph illustrating the proportion of smokers who have quit overtaking the proportion of current smokers

Martin Dockrell, Tobacco Control Lead at PHE told MailOnline: ‘It is encouraging to see that the number of smokers continues to fall, a step closer to making smoking obsolete.

‘Since the start of the pandemic we have also seen a sharp increase in smokers trying to quit. 

‘Unfortunately the biggest increase has been in people trying to quit “cold turkey”, which is the least effective way.

‘Smokers are much more likely to quit successfully if they get behavioural support and use effective nicotine replacement products’  

Smokers who have quit first overtook current smokers in 1982 after a large amount of anti-smoking evidence and campaigning in the early 70s that has continued and contributed to the decline in smokers. 

During the 80s and the 90s more evidence kept emerging that linked smoking to poor health including heart disease. 

Smoking in the workplace and in enclosed public places was banned in 2006 and 2007 before smoking in the car with children under the age of 18 was banned in 2015. 

Most recently plain packaging was introduced and the minimum package size was changed to 20.

Pictured: Stock photo of a man smoking a cigarette. The proportion of smokers who have quit, all persons aged 16 years and above, has overtaken the proportion of current smokers

Pictured: Stock photo of a man smoking a cigarette. The proportion of smokers who have quit, all persons aged 16 years and above, has overtaken the proportion of current smokers

Of the 14.1 per cent of adults that smoked in 2019 unemployed people smoked more than employed or economically inactive people. 

Single people smoked more than people in relationships and people with degrees had the lowest proportion of current smokers (7.3 per cent). 

For both men and women the ethnic group with the most amount of smokers was mixed while big differences between men and women within ethnic groups. 

More Chinese men, 12.6 per cent, smoked than Chinese women and more black men, 12.9 per cent, smoked than black women. 

The most recent data for which sexual orientation has a larger proportion of smokers is from 2018 which says that more LQBTQ+ people, 22.2 per cent, smoked than heterosexual people, 15.5 per cent. 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk