Seven Million People In UK 'Have Never Used The Internet'

Research by the Office for National Statistics shows more than seven million adults in the UK have never used the internet.

Currently 43.5 million adults are now online, which is one million more than this same time last year.  However, 7.1 million remain offline, with the elderly and disabled least likely to be connected.  

Digging deeper into these stats, considerably more women (4.2 million) than men (2.8 million) have never used the internet.  London has the highest rate of internet users (90%), whereas Northern Ireland has the lowest at 79%.  And when broken down by age, 99% of 16-24-year-olds are connected to the web.

Look to the other end of the spectrum however, only 34.3% of those aged 75 or above use the internet.  This is an increase of 1.6 million people from 2011, when it was 23.8% of over-75s.  People with disabilities were three times less likely to user the internet than those without, with 3.7 million disabled adults not connected.