Adult smoking

Headline facts and figures

6.0 million

people smoked cigarettes (aged 18 and above) in the UK in 2023

25 to 34 age

highest propotion of current smokers (14%)

5.1 million

adults aged 16 years and over uses an e-cigatette daily or occasionally

Percentage of smokers by age, sex and other personal characteristics

Men were more likely to smoke than women in the UK in 2023, as seen in previous years. Around 3.4 million men (13.7%) and around 2.6 million women (10.1%) reported being current smokers.

When considering the population by age (Figure 3):

those aged 25 to 34 years were most likely to smoke (14.0%)
those aged 65 years and over were least likely to smoke (8.2%)
those aged 18 to 24 years have seen the largest reduction in smoking prevalence between 2011 (25.7%) and 2023 (9.8%)

Percentage who were current smokers, all persons by age group, UK, 2011 to 2023

Figure 3: People aged 25 to 34 years continued to have the highest smoking prevalence

Source - Annual Population Survey from the Office for National Statistics

Download Figure 3 data:

Excel spreadsheet (XLSX format, 19KB)

Characteristics of current cigarette smokers in the UK

Smoking prevalence is known to be associated with a variety of characteristics, such as relationship status, education level and socio-economic status.

When looking at smoking prevalence by economic activity status in the UK in 2023, those who were defined as unemployed had a higher proportion of current smokers (19.7%), compared with those who were in paid employment (11.4%) and those who were economically inactive (12.2%).

Of those who were classified as being in a “routine and manual” socio-economic classification, according to the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC), 20.2% were current smokers, compared with 7.9% of “managerial and professional occupations”. This follows the same trend since data collection began in 2014 (Figure 4).

The percentage who were current smokers by socio-economic status, all persons aged 18 to 64 years, UK, 2014 to 2023

Figure 4: Smoking prevalence continued to be higher in routine and manual occupations than in managerial and professional occupations in 2023

Download Figure 4 data:

Excel spreadsheet (XLSX format, 19KB)

Footnotes

Socio-economic status is defined using the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC).
We have restricted the data to those of working age, aged between 18 and 64 years.

Of people who had no qualifications, 27.4% were current smokers in 2023. This is higher than among those who reported their highest level of education as “Other qualifications” (21.8%), and those who reported GCSEs as their highest level of education (18.0%). Those who reported a degree or equivalent as their highest level of education had the lowest percentage of current smokers (5.8%) (Figure 5).

Percentage who were current smokers by highest level of educational attainment, all people aged 18 years and over, UK, 2014 to 2023

Figure 5: The highest percentage of current smokers were among those who reported they had no qualifications

Download Figure 5 data:

Excel spreadsheet (XLSX format, 40KB)

A wider range of data on the characteristics of cigarette smokers from the APS is available in our accompanying dataset. This includes estimates by:

employment status
relationship status
housing tenure
country of birth
ethinicity
religion

More information on smoking prevalence by socio-economic status can be found in our Deprivation and the impact on smoking prevalence in England and Wales: 2017 to 2021 bulletin.