England's Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Professor Chris Whitty has issued a rare social media update, highlighting a cause of "enormous preventable harm". In his first post on X since July, he pointed to new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on smoking and vaping trends.
Smoking in England falls below 10%
Professor Whitty wrote that "ONS data released today shows smoking in England now under 10% with rapid falls in young adults". He added: "E-cigarette use no longer rising in people under 25. The figure below shows drop by age since 2011."
The ONS figures reveal that approximately 4.9 million people aged 18 and over (9.8% of the population) were smokers in the UK in 2025, down from 10.6% in 2024. This "follows a long-term downward trend".
Young adults see greatest decline
Those aged 45 to 54 years recorded the highest proportion of current smokers at 12.4%. Meanwhile, 18 to 24-year-olds saw the greatest reduction in smoking prevalence across all age groups — a drop of 18.5 percentage points between 2011 (25.7%) and 2025 (7.2%).
Across the UK, roughly one in ten (9.9%) adults aged 16 and over used an e-cigarette daily or occasionally in 2025, according to the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN). While the number of adults vaping has remained broadly unchanged compared to 2024 (10.0%), there has been an overall upward trend in e-cigarette use since 2020, when the figure stood at 6.4%.
Vaping remains more common than smoking
In 2025, the proportion of people currently using e-cigarettes remained higher than those still smoking traditional cigarettes, according to the OPN (9.9% and 8.7%, respectively). This translates to approximately 5.4 million current e-cigarette users and 4.8 million current smokers.
This continues the trend first recorded in 2024, when vaping overtook cigarette smoking for the very first time. E-cigarette use was most prevalent among 25 to 34-year-olds across Great Britain, with 16.4% using e-cigarettes either daily or occasionally.
