Plain English Summary
Just over one out of every ten people in the UK smokes (10.6%). The chance that a person smokes has been going down ever since 1974, when records began in the UK. The number of cigarettes that people smoke has also gone down.
Here are some patterns in smoking.
- Smoking is slightly more common in men than women in the UK
In GB, people aged 16-24 and people aged 60 and over are less likely to smoke than those aged 25-59. But older people are more likely to be ex-smokers.
People in lower-paid jobs are much more likely to smoke than people with higher-paid jobs in the UK
Unemployed people are more likely to smoke than employed people in the UK
More than half of smokers in GB aim to quit
Nearly a quarter of smokers in GB aim to quit in the next 3 months
Smoking is the biggest cause of death and disease that can be controlled. About half of all life-long smokers will die early, losing on average about 10 years of life. Most smoking-related deaths are from one of three types of disease: lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and coronary heart disease (CHD).