Home › Data for journalists › Business, social and email
Business, social and emailUK adults who are recent internet users, 2013 to 2020
The share of UK adults who had used the internet in the last three months rose every year from 83.3% in 2013 to 92.1% in 2020. The biggest change was among people aged 75 and over, whose recent use almost doubled.
Key findings
- 92.1% of UK adults were recent internet users in 2020, up from 83.3% in 2013.
- Recent internet use among adults aged 75 and over rose from 29.1% in 2013 to 54.0% in 2020.
- The share of adults who had never used the internet fell from 14.0% in 2013 to 6.3% in 2020.
The data
| Year | All adults: used in last 3 months (%) | Aged 75+: used in last 3 months (%) | All adults: never used (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 83.3 | 29.1 | 14 |
| 2014 | 85 | 31.9 | 12.6 |
| 2015 | 86.2 | 33 | 11.4 |
| 2016 | 87.9 | 38.7 | 10.2 |
| 2017 | 88.9 | 40.5 | 9.2 |
| 2018 | 89.8 | 43.6 | 8.4 |
| 2019 | 90.8 | 46.8 | 7.5 |
| 2020 | 92.1 | 54 | 6.3 |
Use this data
Free to use in articles, reports and presentations, with credit and a link to this page. Please also credit the original source.
Sources and method
- Office for National Statistics, Internet users, UK: 2020 (dataset, published 6 April 2021) (internetusers2020.xlsx, Table 1B (%), persons aged 16 and over, UK)
- Office for National Statistics, Internet users, UK: 2020 (bulletin) (Headline figures and discontinuation notice)
Rows were copied from Table 1B of the ONS Internet users 2020 workbook: the 'All adults' and '75+' rows under 'Used in the last 3 months', and the 'All adults' row under 'Never used'.
Writing about this?
I have 22 years in Google Ads, Meta, tracking and ecommerce, and I am happy to give an expert comment or explain what the numbers mean for businesses.
Ask for a commentMore on business, social and email

Daily time spent online by UK adults, by age and sex, May 2025
UK online adults spent an average of 4 hours 30 minutes a day online in May 2025, ten minutes more than a year earlier.

Email marketing open and click rates by industry, 2025
Across 3.6 million MailerLite campaigns sent between December 2024 and November 2025, the median open rate was 43.46% and the median click rate 2.09%.

Share of UK businesses using AI, 2023 to 2026
The share of UK businesses with 10 or more employees using at least one AI technology has almost tripled since ONS first asked in late September 2023.