The 25-34 Shift: What Britain's Latest ONS Data Says About Vaping's Centre of Gravity

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AT A GLANCE

For most of the 2020s, the story of UK vaping was told by its youngest adults. The new ONS statistics suggest that chapter is closing: the 25-34 cohort has overtaken the 16-24s as Britain's heaviest vaping group, and within it, women now lead both of the two youngest adult age bands.

The cohort that overtook the teens

Between 2021 and 2024, the 16-24 group was consistently the heaviest vaping cohort in the UK, peaking at 15.9% in 2023 before sliding to 13.0% and 12.9%. In 2025 that order flipped: the 25-34s reached 16.4%, their highest recorded level, while the 16-24s settled at 12.9%.

One caveat before reading too much into the crossing: these are cross-sectional figures from successive annual surveys, not a tracked cohort. The 25-34s of 2025 are not the same people as the 16-24s of 2023. Still, the pattern is unambiguous at the population level.

The gender split sharpened the picture. In 2025, women out-vaped men in both of the two youngest adult cohorts: 15.7% to 10.2% among 16-24s, and 18.3% to 14.4% among 25-34s. From age 35 up, the difference runs the other way, with men ahead in every older band.

E-CIGARETTE USE IN GREAT BRITAIN BY AGE AND SEX, 2025 (ONS OPN SURVEY)

A decade that moved one way

The 25-34 female series is the steepest line in the ONS dataset. From 5.4% in 2014 to 18.3% in 2025, usage among women in this band rose 12.9 percentage points over eleven annual surveys; men in the same band rose 9.1 points over the same period.

The climb was not smooth. Usage sat between roughly 4.7% and 5.7% from 2014 to 2018, jumped to 10.5% in 2019, eased back to 8.3% in 2020, and then stepped upward almost every year: 8.4% in 2021, 9.7% in 2022, 10.4% in 2023, 13.7% in 2024, and 18.3% in 2025.

Against men of the same age, the lead changed hands only recently. In 2020 they were 8.9% to 8.3%; in 2022, 11.6% to 9.7%; in 2023, 15.0% to 10.4%. Women first came out ahead in 2024, at 13.7% against 12.0%, and widened the gap the following year. Over all adults 16 and over, the totals remain near parity: 9.6% for women, 10.2% for men. The entire gender difference is concentrated in the 25-34 band.

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Daily, occasional, former, never

Asked how often they vape, 11.2% of 25-34 women in 2025 reported daily use and 7.1% occasional use. For men in the same band the split was 9.9% daily and 4.6% occasional. The difference in depth, not just breadth, of use is what separates the two curves.

Among 25-34 women, 10.0% said they had vaped before but no longer do, and 71.7% had never vaped; for men the figures were 11.2% former and 74.3% never. Two footnotes: the former-user category includes people who tried e-cigarettes and stopped, so it is not a measure of quitting, and the frequency questions were worded differently before 2020, which keeps the 2014 figures from being directly comparable.

Read the fine print

The figures come from ONS's Opinions and Lifestyle Survey, covering 16-year-olds and over in England, Scotland and Wales; Northern Ireland is not included. Rates combine daily and occasional users.

Precision matters here. The 2025 point estimate for 25-34 women carries a 95% confidence interval of 14.4% to 22.2%, against 10.6% to 16.7% a year earlier. An approximate test on those published intervals does not confirm that the 4.6-point year-on-year jump clears the usual 5% significance bar, and the men's interval (10.6% to 18.3%) overlaps the women's. The directional story is clear; the exact size of the annual jump is less certain.

ONS is also explicit about what the data cannot do: it tracks usage in the population, not sales or revenue, and it does not break usage down by product type, flavour, brand or retail channel. ONS additionally flags method changes around 2020, including survey frequency and the classification of vaping status, and advises caution when interpreting the time series.

The wider picture: flat vaping, falling smoking

The 25-34 surge sits inside a stable market. Around 5.4 million adults in Great Britain reported vaping daily or occasionally in 2025, a rate of 9.9% against 10.0% the year before. The total has been flat for two years after climbing from 3.7% in 2014 to 10.0% in 2024, and every age group other than the 25-34s posted declines in 2025.

On the other side of the comparison, current cigarette smokers numbered about 4.8 million, or 8.7% of adults, down from 9.1%. E-cigarette use has now run ahead of cigarette smoking for a second consecutive year, a first in the series that appeared in 2024. (The separate Annual Population Survey puts UK-wide smoking at 9.8% among 18-and-over; different scope and definition, so it is not directly comparable.)

The regulatory frame keeps tightening underneath the numbers. Under the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, measures taking effect from 29 October 2026 extend the 18+ rule to nicotine-free e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches for the first time, ban vending-machine sales of e-cigarettes and nicotine products, and restrict promotional freebies and steep discounts (as reported by 2Firsts).

For brands and distributors selling into Britain, the headline is demographic rather than a volume one. The pool of vapers has held steady near 5.4 million while its centre of gravity moved up a generation, and within that generation women now lead the two youngest cohorts. Which products, flavours or channels drove the shift is not something this dataset can answer. What it does settle is who the market's key group is: the 25-34s, not the 16-24s, from this year on.

Sources: ONS, "Adult smoking habits in the UK: 2025" (statistical bulletin, released 6 October 2026); ONS dataset "Smoking behaviours and e-cigarette use in England and Great Britain", 2025 edition (Table 8); ONS methodology documentation; regulatory context as reported by 2Firsts.

This article is written for industry professionals and does not constitute legal advice. Nicotine products carry health risks and are subject to strict regulation in most jurisdictions.