Statistics on alcohol: England

Contents

• Alcohol consumption: adults
• Alcohol consumption: children
• Alcohol-related hospital activity and treatment
• Alcohol-specific deaths
• Local data

Alcohol consumption: Adults

The main source of data on drinking among adults in England is the Health Survey for England, commissioned by NHS England. This is an annual survey covering adults aged 16 and over living in private households in England.

In 2024, 76% of adults in England said they drink alcohol. 51% reported drinking alcohol within the last week.

21% of adults drank more than the recommended weekly limit of 14 units of alcohol.

10% of adults have an alcohol use disorders identification test score which indicates increasing or higher risk drinking behaviour. 0.5% have a score which indicates possible alcohol dependence.

The proportion of people drinking alcohol, and the proportion of people drinking more than the recommended weekly limit, has generally declined over time. The chart below shows the proportion of people who drank at least one unit of alcohol and the number of people drinking more than 14 units of alcohol weekly between 2012 and 2024.

The Health Survey for England did not run in 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic.

Men and women

Men were more likely to drink alcohol than women. 56% of men reported drinking alcohol within the previous week, compared to 46% of women. More men than women reported drinking more than the recommended weekly allowance: 35% of men drank more than 14 units a week, compared to 14% of women.

Age

Older adults were more likely to drink than younger adults; for example, 84% of people aged 55 to 64 said they drink alcohol, and 81% of people aged 65 to 74. This compared to 65% of people aged 16 to 24 and 74% of people aged 25 to 34.

Older adults were also more likely to drink more than the recommended weekly amount: 28% of people aged 55 to 64 drank more than the recommended weekly allowance, compared to 17% of people aged 16 to 24.

Region

The chart below shows the number of people who drink more than the recommended weekly allowance by region.

Alcohol consumption: Children

The Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use among Young People in England publication provides data on alcohol consumption among school pupils in England. The survey runs every two years; the most recent available data is for 2023.

In 2023, 37% of children aged 11 to 15 said that they had ever had an alcoholic drink. This included 15% of pupils aged 11, 33% of pupils aged 13, and 62% of pupils aged 15.

The chart below shows the decline in the proportion of children aged 11 to 15 who said that they had ever had an alcoholic drink from 1992 to 2023.

Girls were slightly more likely to have drunk alcohol than boys; 38% of girls say that they had ever had an alcoholic drink, compared to 36% of boys.

Most children who had an alcoholic drink were given the alcohol by their parents (61%), and consumed it with their parents (67%), friends (50%) or other relatives (36%). 94% of the surveyed families were aware that the child drinks alcohol.

1% of pupils aged 11, 3% of pupils aged 13, and 11% of pupils aged 15 said that they drank alcohol at least once a week.

There is no data available on alcohol consumption among those under the age of 11 in England.

Alcohol-related hospital activity and treatment

Alcohol misuse is a major cause of attendance and admission to general hospitals in both the A&E/trauma and non-emergency settings. NHS England estimate that up to 15% of all A&E attendances are alcohol related.

In England, there were 339,916 alcohol-specific hospital admissions in 2023/24, which was 612 per 100,000 population. The admission rate for males was 868 per 100,000 population, compared with 373 per 100,000 for females.

Treatment for alcohol abuse

The National Drug Treatment Monitoring System publishes data on people receiving treatment for alcohol and substance abuse in England.

In 2024/25, there were 147,713 adult clients in alcohol-related treatment, which was 45% of all adults in substance-misuse treatment. 99,955 were being treated for alcohol problems solely. 47,758 were treated for problematic use of alcohol in combination with other substances.

This was the largest number of people in treatment for problematic use of alcohol since the series began in 2009/10.

In 2024/25, there were 6,107 children and young people in drug and alcohol treatment who said they had a problem with alcohol, which was 38% of children and young people in drug and alcohol treatment. Alcohol was the second most common problem substance, after cannabis.

The number and proportion of children and young people who are in drug and alcohol treatment who report a problem with alcohol has declined steadily over the last two decades.

Alcohol-specific deaths

The Office for National Statistics publishes data on alcohol-specific deaths. Note that this data is for the UK, while the statistics in the previous sections were only for England.

In 2023, there were 10,473 alcohol-specific deaths in the UK, which was 15.9 deaths per 100,000 people.

The number of deaths caused by alcohol has generally increased in recent years; in 2019, there were 11.8 alcohol-specific deaths per 100,000 people. This increased to 16.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 2022 and fell slightly in 2023.

Comparing countries of the UK

The number of deaths can also be expressed as an age-standardised rate per 100,000 population to enable comparisons between the countries of the UK. This means that the rate accounts for differences in the age structure of the population in different UK countries.

In 2023, Scotland’s alcohol-specific death rate was higher than any of the other countries. There were 22.6 deaths per 100,000 people in Scotland, compared with 18.5 in Northern Ireland, 17.7 in Wales, and 15.0 in England.

The charts below show the long-term trend in alcohol-specific death rates in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Local data

The map below shows alcohol-related hospital admissions and alcohol-specific deaths by local authority in England in 2023/24.