Smoking Statistics

Just under one out of every ten people in the UK smokes (9.8%). 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 in the UK.

• Smoking is slightly more common in men than women.
• People aged 18 to 24 years, and those aged 65 years and over were least likely to smoke. 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
• People who rent from a Local Authority or Housing Authority are much more likely to smoke than people who own their house.
• More than half of smokers in GB aim to quit
• One in five smokers in GB aim to quit in the next 3 months

Smoking is the one of biggest causes of death and disease that can be controlled. Up to 2 in 3 life-long smokers will die early, and lifelong smokers lose 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).

The highest recorded level of smoking among men in Great Britain was 82% in 1948, with 65% smoking manufactured cigarettes. At that time, it was also more common for men to smoke pipes or cigars as well as, or instead of, manufactured cigarettes. By contrast, women have tended to smoke only cigarettes. Smoking prevalence among women in 1948 was 41% and remained constant until the early 1970s, peaking at 45% in the mid-1960s, according to tobacco industry surveys.[1]

Overall, the proportion of adults (aged 16 and over) smoking in Great Britain has been declining since 1974 when national government surveys on smoking among adults first began.[2] The fall in smoking rates is due to a combination of people quitting and a growth in the population of people who have never smoked.

In 2025, 9.8% of adults in the UK smoke (Table 1).[2] The proportion of the population who have never smoked has increased from 46.7% in 2011 to 64.1% in 2025.

Table 1. Cigarette Smoking Prevalence, Adults Aged 18 and Over, Countries of the UK (APS), 2025[2]

Various methods have been used to measure smoking rates in England, Great Britain and the UK over the years. Smoking prevalence data in this fact sheet is sourced from three Government surveys: The Annual Population Survey (APS),[2] the General Household/General Lifestyle Surveys (GLS)[3] and the Opinion & Lifestyle Survey (OPN).[4]

The demographic data in this report mostly uses the Annual Population Survey, which represents people aged 18+ in the UK. The earliest data available from the APS is from 2011. Government targets are set on the basis of the APS data as this has the largest sample size. This fact sheet covers the 2025 results and trends across years. However, the three-year average is often used in other ASH and external resources as it’s more stable between years.

The GLS survey ran from 1974 until 2011. The OPN survey also started asking about smoking in 2011, using the same prevalence question and sampling method as the GLS. Both are representative of people aged 16+ in Great Britain. Unlike the APS, the OPN includes questions about vaping. It also asks smokers a wider range of questions, including number of cigarettes consumed, how soon the first cigarette of the day is smoked after waking and desire to quit.

Due to differences in sample size and methodology, overall prevalence figures differ between surveys, though the trends are consistent. Since 2000 data have been weighted. Table 2 shows a comparison of prevalence in the three surveys. Only four-yearly data is shown before 2022, but results are published yearly (or every other year before 2000).

In 2024, APS data for 2020-2023 were reweighted by ONS. The updated values are used in this fact sheet.

Table 2. Smoking prevalence by survey, 1974-2025 [2,3,4]

See also:

ASH Fact Sheet Facts at a glance

ASH Key Topic Smoking: What you need to know

Across Great Britain, since 1990, there has been a steady increase in the number of people using mainly hand-rolled tobacco. In 1990, 18% of male smokers and 2% of female smokers said they smoked mainly hand-rolled cigarettes but by 2011 this had risen to 40% and 26% respectively.[4] The 2018 Opinions & Lifestyle survey revealed that 40.8% of male and 29.9% of female smokers said they only smoked hand-rolled cigarettes.[4] This is most likely due to the growing unaffordability of ready-made cigarettes, and that smoking is becoming more concentrated among people on low incomes.

Periodically, the Government sets targets to reduce smoking prevalence in the population.

In 2023, the Conservative Government published ‘Stopping the Start: our plan to create a smokefree generation.[5]

In July 2019, the Conservative Government announced its ambition for a Smokefree 2030 (where the overall percentage of the population who smoke is 5% or below) through its consultation document ‘Advancing our health: prevention in the 2020s’.[6]

In July 2017, the Conservative Government published a Tobacco Control Plan for England, outlining the steps needed to drastically reduce smoking rates by 2022. Its goals included reducing the number of 15 year-olds who smoke regularly from 8% to 3% or below, reducing smoking in adults from 15.5% to 12%, and reducing smoking in pregnancy from 10.7% to 6% or below.[7]

In March 2011 the Coalition Government launched its Tobacco Control Plan for England in which it set out ambitions to reduce adult smoking prevalence to 18.5% or less by 2015 and to reduce smoking among 15 year-olds to 12% or less by 2015.[8]

In its strategy paper launched on 1 February 2010, the Labour Government set new targets to reduce smoking among the general population to 10% of adults and to 1% or less among children by 2020.[9]

In the 1998 White Paper ‘Smoking Kills’ the Government set a target to reduce adult smoking rates to 21% or less by 2010, with a reduction in prevalence among routine and manual groups to 26% or less.[10] The target for the general population was achieved in 2007 but not for lower socio-economic groups (28% in 2011).

See also:

ASH Fact Sheet Key dates in tobacco regulation

Cigarette smoking is more common among men (11.3%) than women (8.2%), and this difference has been fairly consistent over time.

In the 2024 results, APS data for 2020-2023 were reweighted by ONS. The updated values are used in this fact sheet.

Table 3. Prevalence of cigarette smoking by sex (GLS), 1974-2010, GB age 16+[3] 

Table 4. Prevalence of cigarette smoking by sex (APS), 2011-2025, UK age 18+[2]

Figure 1. Prevalence of cigarette smoking by sex and survey 1974-2025, GB aged 16+(GLS and OPN) & UK aged 18+ (APS) [2,3,4]

Smoking prevalence varies slightly by region. In 2025, regional smoking rates range from 8.4% in London to 11.3% in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Since 2011, smoking prevalence in England has halved (52% decline), with London seeing the largest percentage point decline (56%).

Table 5. Prevalence of adult cigarette smoking by region (APS), UK age 18+, 2011 and 2025[2]

Since the start of the APS survey in 2011, smoking has become less common across all age groups.[2] Smoking is lowest among people aged 18-24 and aged 65 and over (both 7.2%). Although people aged 65 and over are more likely than younger people to have ever been smokers, they are also more likely to have stopped smoking. Those aged 45 to 54 years have the highest proportion of current smokers in 2025 (12.4%).

Table 6. Cigarette smoking by age (APS), UK, 2011-2025[2]

Figure 2. Cigarette smoking by age (APS), UK 2011-2025[2]

See also

ASH Fact Sheet Young people and smoking

ASH Key Topic Youth Smoking

There is a strong link between cigarette smoking and socio-economic group. In 2025, 16.9% of adults in the UK in routine and manual occupations smoked compared with 5.9% in managerial and professional occupations.[2]

People in employment are less likely to smoke (10%) than unemployed people (17%), and someone who rents through an LA or HA is four times as likely to smoke (23.2%) as someone who owns their house outright (5.9%).[2]

In England, one in four adults with a long-term mental health condition smoke (24.0%), while four in ten adults with serious mental illness smoke (40.5%).[11]

Figure 3. Prevalence of adult cigarette smoking by housing (APS), UK age 18+, 2025[2]

Since the mid-1970s cigarette consumption has fallen among both men and women, particularly among heavy smokers (defined as those smoking more than 20 cigarettes a day). The average number of cigarettes smoked per day by men and women has seen a general downward trend. In 1974, male smokers living in Great Britain consumed an average of 18.4 cigarettes per day, and female smokers 13.7.[3]  By 2025, the average number of cigarettes consumed per day in GB had decreased to 10.9 for male smokers and 9.0 for female smokers.[4]

Smoking every day is associated with lower socio-economic status. A 2026 survey commissioned by ASH found that daily smoking is more common in lower social groups (C2DE, 8.8%) than in the higher (ABC1, 4.7%).[12]

Lower cigarette consumption per day is associated with higher socio-economic status. ASH found that 48% of current smokers in highest social group (AB) smoked 6 or fewer cigarettes per day compared to 28% in the lowest social group (DE).[12]

There are several ways of measuring dependence on smoking including the desire to quit amongst those who nevertheless continue to smoke. Other ways of measuring dependence include how soon the first cigarette of the day is smoked after waking. In 2025, OPN data shows 40% of current smokers in Great Britain had their first cigarette less than 30 minutes after waking.[4]

Desire to stop smoking is high; in 2025 52% of GB current smokers intended to quit, of which 20% intended to quit in the next three months. Only 16% said that they do not intend to stop.[4]

Smoking is one of the primary causes of preventable illness and premature death, accounting for approximately 80,000 deaths a year in the UK.[13]

Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body and dramatically reduces both quality of life and life expectancy. Smoking causes lung cancer, respiratory disease and heart disease as well as numerous cancers in other organs including the lip, mouth, throat, bladder, kidney, stomach, liver and cervix. The 2010 US Surgeon General report, ‘How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease’, concludes that “there is no risk-free level of exposure to tobacco smoke, and there is no safe tobacco product.”[14]

In England it is estimated that in 2019-20, among adults aged 35 and over, around 500,000 NHS hospital admissions were attributable to smoking, accounting for 4% of all hospital admissions in this age group.[15] The cost of smoking to the National Health Service in England is estimated to be £1.8 billion a year.[16]

It is estimated that the global yearly death toll as a result of tobacco use is around 8 million (including exposure to second hand smoke).[12] It is predicted that by the end of the 21st century, tobacco will have killed one billion people within the century.[17]

Up to 2 in 3 life-long smokers will die prematurely, [18, 19] losing on average about 10 years of life.[20]

Data from the Global Burden Study of Disease, 2023 reports the proportion of deaths in the United Kingdom. Tobacco is the cause of 12% of deaths in the UK each year. It is one of the biggest preventable causes of death in the UK.

Most smoking-related deaths arise from one of three types of disease: lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD which incorporates emphysema and chronic bronchitis) and coronary heart disease (CHD). In the UK, one in five cancer deaths (19%) are due to tobacco, amounting to 41 thousand deaths per year. Six in ten (59%) of tracheal, bronchus and lung cancers are due to tobacco.

See also:

ASH Fact Sheet Smoking and cancer

ASH Fact Sheet Smoking and respiratory disease

ASH Fact Sheet Smoking, the heart and circulation

There are many medical conditions associated with or aggravated by smoking, which may not be fatal but still cause years of debilitating illness. These include:

Please cite as: Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). Smoking Statistics. 2026

Online links last checked October 2026.

[1] Nicolaides-Bouman A & Wald, N. UK smoking statistics. 2nd ed. London, Oxford: Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine; 1991

[2] Adult smoking habits in the UK: 2025. Office for National Statistics. Annual Population Survey (APS). Results available here

[3] General Lifestyle Survey - Office for National Statistics (GLS), 1974 – 2011. Results available here

[4] Adult smoking habits in the UK: 2025. Office for National Statistics. Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN). Results available here

[5] Stopping the start: Our new plan to create a smokefree generation – Department of Health and Social Care, November 2023

[6] Advancing our health: prevention in the 2020s – HM Government, July 2019

[7] Towards a smoke-free generation: tobacco control plan for England - Department of Health, July 2017

[8] Healthy Lives, Healthy People: A Tobacco Control Plan for England.- HM Government,March 2011

[9] A Smokefree Future. A comprehensive tobacco control strategy for England - Department of Health, February 2010

[10] Smoking Kills A White Paper on Tobacco – The Stationary Office, 1998

[11] DHSC, Fingertips smoking profile, smoking prevalence among people with long-term mental health conditions and serious mental illness. 2025

[12] 2026 ASH adult survey conducted by YouGov. Total sample size was 13,259 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 18/02/2026 - 19/03/2026. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).

[13]  Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Global Burden Study of Disease, 2023

[14] How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: The Biology and Behavioural Basis for Smoking Attributable Disease: A Report of the Surgeon General. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010

[15] Statistics on Smoking, England 2020. Smoking-related ill health and mortality, NHS digital

[16] ASH Ready Reckoner, Action on Smoking and Health, 2026

[17] Jha, P., & Peto, R. Global effects of smoking, of quitting, and of taxing tobacco. New England Journal of Medicine, 2014

[18] Banks, E., Joshy, G., Weber, M.F. et al. Tobacco smoking and all-cause mortality in a large Australian cohort study: findings from a mature epidemic with current low smoking prevalence. BMC Med, 2015

[19] Pirie K, Peto R, Reeves G et al. The 21st century hazards of smoking and benefits of stopping: a prospective study of one million women in the UK. The Lancet, 2012

[20] Doll R, Peto, R, Boreham & Sutherland I. Mortality in relation to smoking: 50 years’ observations on male British doctors. BMJ 2004