Indicator
Trends in smoking rates
Published
5 June 2025
Last updated
11 May 2026
Time to read
About 2 mins
About 2 mins
Key points
- Across all four countries, the proportion of adults smoking has almost halved over the past decade.
- In 2024, more than 10% of adults smoke in all four countries.
Smoking is a major cause of preventable ill health and death in the UK. Smoking causes harm to nearly every organ in the body and increases the risk of developing a wide range of health conditions including lung cancer and cardiovascular disease.
This chart shows the percentage of adults in the UK population who smoke, between 2011 and 2024.
- Across all four countries, the percentage of adults who smoke has almost halved over the past decade.
- In 2011, the percentage of adults smoking was highest in Scotland at 23.4% and lowest in Northern Ireland at 18.9%.
- By 2024, the gap between countries had reduced, with Scotland still having the highest percentage of adults smoking (12%), compared with 10.4% in England.
Smoking prevalence has continued to decline over the past decade. Recent policies targeting smoking include a ban on smoking in a car with children and young people under 18 years, and the introduction of plain packaging and minimum pack size.
- The data presented here are weighted estimates from the Annual Population Survey, an ongoing survey of households in the UK.
- A smoker is defined as some who responds ‘yes’ to the survey question ‘Do you smoke cigarettes at all nowadays?’
- Adults refers to people aged 18 and over.
Source: Office for National Statistics, Smoking habits in the UK and its constituent countries, 2024
