How UK’s ditched cigs and turned to vaping: Record 5.4million now use e-cigs OVERTAKING

A record 5.4 million adults in the UK now vape, overtaking cigarette smokers for the first time, new figures suggest.

Just 9.1 per cent adults in Britain smoked in 2024, down on last year and a fraction of the nearly 50 per cent during the 1970s, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). 

Its data has been crunched into an interactive map, which allows readers to see exactly how many people living in their area are still hooked on cigarettes.

Meanwhile, one in ten over-16s now regularly vape.

This equates to around 5.4 million vapers and 4.9 million smokers, the ONS figures suggest.

David Mais, from the ONS, said: ‘Interestingly, our 2024 data show that, for the first time, the number of users of e-cigarettes or vapes has overtaken the number of smokers.

‘Among adults aged 16 (and over) in Great Britain, 10 per cent said they were e-cigarette users, compared with 9.1 per cent that were cigarette smokers.

‘This is in line with the long-term trend of fewer people smoking cigarettes over the past decade.’

Just 9.1 per cent adults in Britain smoked in 2024, down on last year and a fraction of the nearly 50 per cent during the 1970s, according to the Office for National Statistics 

According to the figures, e-cigarette use remained highest among people aged 16 to 24 years, with 13 per cent using e-cigarettes either daily or occasionally. 

This is despite sales of vapes to under-18s being banned, with anyone caught flogging them to children threatened with fines and prosecution by Trading Standards. 

Campaigners have also long called for much tougher regulations on vapes — including an immediate ban on marketing to children, which are most popular among teens. 

They have blamed predatory manufacturers for the ever-growing crisis, claiming they are intentionally luring kids in with colourful packaging, compared to highlighter pens, and child-friendly flavours such as bubblegum and cotton candy. 

Daily e-cigarette use, meanwhile, was highest among people aged 25 to 34 years and 35 to 49 years in Great Britain, at 9.3 per cent and 9.5 per cent respectively.

It rose among both age groups from 2023. 

Women appeared to be driving the trend, with vaping rates increasing almost a fifth in a year, while it has decreased among men.  

One in 10 women reported using e-cigarettes daily or occasionally in 2024, up from 8.5 per cent in 2023.

By contrast, the proportion of men who use vapes on a daily or occasional basis dropped from 11 per cent in 2023 to 10.1 per cent in 2024. 

An estimated 6.7 per cent of people aged 16 and over in Britain also reported using an e-cigarette ‘daily’ in 2024, up from 5.9 per cent in 2023, the ONS data showed.

Around 2.7 per cent of people who had never smoked also reported using an e-cigarette daily or occasionally.  

Despite NHS chiefs insisting it is safer than smoking, vaping is not risk-free. E-cigarettes contain harmful toxins and their long-term effects remains a mystery.

Experts are concerned the high nicotine content might increase blood pressure and cause other heart problems.

Doctors have expressed fears there could be a wave of lung disease, dental issues and even cancer in the coming decades in people who took up the habit at a young age.

Last year, in world-first guidance setting out possible interventions to help people stop using tobacco products, the World Health Organization also labelled the evidence around e-cigarettes as ‘complex’.

Vapes cannot be recommended as way to stop smoking as too little is known about the harms and benefits, the UN agency said.

According to the figures, e-cigarette use remained highest among people aged 16 to 24 years, with 13 per cent using e-cigarettes either daily or occasionally 

According to the ONS stats, those aged 25 to 34 years continued to have the highest proportion of current smokers (12.6 per cent) in the UK in 2024.

Adults aged 18 to 24 years had the largest reduction in smoking prevalence, dropping to 8.1 per cent in 2024, from 25.7 per cent in 2011.

Experts have long said the introduction of modern anti-smoking laws, such as selling cigarettes in plain packaging, are behind the fall in smokers. 

Other tough measures deployed in the past two decades include slapping graphic warning labels depicting their damaging health effects on all tobacco and banning smoking in restaurants, pubs and nightclubs.

The smoking rate has been in freefall for decades, with health officials declaring the end of smoking to finally be ‘in sight’.

Around 45 per cent of people smoked in the 1970s.

The figure had fallen to 20 per in 2011 before hitting 14 per cent in 2020.

England is aiming to go completely smoke-free by 2030, with No10 having already introduced a raft of policies to curb rates.

Government advisers have also even previously called for smoking to be banned on pavements outside pubs and restaurants.