17 per cent of UK has never been online

It appears efforts to get most UK adults online are failing, data released today has indicated.

Office of National Statistics (ONS) research that shows 17 per cent of the UK has never been on the internet. Data for the third quarter of 2011 showed 8.43 million adults had never been online.

To get these numbers up, Race Online 2012 is trying to get as many people as possible on the web by 2012. The Martha Lane-Fox led initiative recently recruited 100,000 digital champions to boost the campaign..

"Internet use is linked to various socio-economic and demographic characteristics, such as age, disability, location and earnings," the ONS said in its report.

Those likely to never use the internet include adults over the age of 65, the widowed and those with a disability, the ONS said.

There were 4.25 million disabled adults who had never used the internet in the third quarter, just over half of the 8.43 million that have never used it.

Of those adults in lower earning employment with pay under 200 per week, eight per cent had not used the internet. Of those paid 1,000 a week or more, there were no non-users.

The largest population of internet users was in the age group of 16 to 24, at 97 per cent, representing 7 million people.

Over the study period, men were more likely to have used the internet than women. Before the third quarter though, this was the other way around.