One Million Never-Smokers in UK Now Vape
More than one million people who have never smoked now vape. New ONS figures reveal how vaping and smoking are changing across Britain.
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Start quizMore than 1 million people who have never smoked now vape.
New figures show a striking change in vaping in Great Britain: more than one million people who say they have never smoked now use e-cigarettes. At the same time, cigarette smoking continues to decline and, for the second consecutive year, more people aged 16 and over are vaping than smoking.
The 2025 figures come from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and highlight two different developments. Falling smoking rates represent continuing progress away from cigarettes. At the same time, the growth in vaping among people who have never smoked raises a different question: why are increasing numbers of people taking up vaping without previously smoking?
More than one million never-smokers now vape
According to the ONS 2025 figures, 1.1 million people who have never smoked, or have never smoked regularly, now say they vape either daily or occasionally. This is up from around 940,000 in 2024.
Overall, 5.4 million people aged 16 and over are now vaping, while the number of UK smokers has fallen from 5.3 million in 2024 to 4.9 million in 2025. Smoking is now reported by nearly one in 10 adults.
For the second year running, therefore, vaping among people aged 16 and over in Great Britain is more common than cigarette smoking.
These figures need to be read with an important distinction in mind. The BBC reports that the vaping statistics cover people aged 16 and over in Great Britain, whereas the smoking figures relate to adults across the whole of the UK.
Vaping is rising among 25 to 34-year-olds
The age profile of vaping is also changing. People aged 25 to 34 have overtaken 16 to 24-year-olds as the age group most likely to vape. According to the ONS, 16.4% of 25 to 34-year-olds now use e-cigarettes daily or occasionally.
David Mais of the ONS suggested this could reflect existing users getting older, growing popularity among 25 to 34-year-olds, or a combination of both.
The proportion of people who have never used an e-cigarette also slightly declined, from 83.4% in 2024 to 83.0% in 2025. Meanwhile, 7.2% of people reported using an e-cigarette in 2025, compared with 6.6% in 2024.
HTaken together, the figures suggest that vaping is not simply concentrated among the youngest adults and is increasingly part of the picture across a wider age range.
Smoking rates continue to fall
Alongside rising vaping figures, the ONS data show continued reductions in cigarette smoking.
Young adults aged 18 to 24 recorded the largest decline in smoking of any age group. By contrast, 45 to 54-year-olds had the highest proportion of current smokers in 2025, at 12.4%. Men remained more likely to smoke than women, consistent with previous years.
Among people who still smoked in 2025, half said they intended to quit.
Comment by Allen Carr’s Easyway
At Allen Carr’s Easyway, we believe a smoke-free future should ultimately be about freedom from nicotine dependence, rather than simply changing the way nicotine is consumed.
We welcome the continued decline in cigarette smoking. The fact that half of current smokers intend to quit is also significant and Allen Carr are here to help.
The fact that 1.1 million people who have never smoked or smoked regularly now vape is exactly what Allen Carr has feared would happen. Vaping is not safe, the damage it causes is still unknown, and non-smokers should not vape.
Government regulation is important, but equally important is to help those caught in the nicotine trap to find freedom, whether smoking or vaping. We are working with some forward-thinking councils to offer our seminars to vapers, but vapers need help across the country, not just in some regions.
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Both programmes are a form of spoken therapy delivered in simple English with no scare stories or images.
Both cover the illusions of the addiction/issue, question your beliefs, provide insights into why you think as you do, shows you how to gain freedom and changes the way you will think about the addiction/issue so that you can leave free without any feeling of loss or battle of wills.
The in-person group seminars are a live one-day course delivered by trained therapists, all of whom stopped with the method. They are delivered either online via Zoom or at a centre and are in groups of up to 25 people. There are shorter booster seminars that are different to the first seminar for the few that require them. There is also a money-back guarantee.
The online video is a pre-recorded programme that can be streamed to your device. There are two options quit vaping or quit vaping for teens, and they are presented by a therapist who has helped thousands of people to freedom. They can be accessed anywhere and at anytime.
