The latest ASH Smokefree GB survey underlines a pivotal shift: vaping is increasingly displacing smoking, but public understanding of relative harms is moving in the wrong direction. Today, 10 per cent of adults in Great Britain vape - around 5.5 million people - while 13 per cent smoke, a figure that has barely shifted since 2021. Importantly, daily vaping is on the rise, climbing from 4.5 per cent in 2020 to 7.6 per cent in 2025, while daily smoking has fallen from 9.7 per cent to 7.4 per cent over the same period. This suggests vaping is helping to accelerate the decline of cigarettes.
Yet, public perceptions of harm are increasingly misaligned with the evidence. More than half of adults (56%) now believe vaping is as harmful or more harmful than smoking, up from just 25 per cent in 2016. Only 28 per cent correctly identify vapes as less harmful, a decline likely driven by media coverage of youth use and safety scares imported from overseas. This growing misunderstanding could undermine vaping’s role in tobacco harm reduction.
Patterns of use are also shifting. Refillable tank systems remain the most common device (50%), but disposable vapes, whose popularity peaked in 2023, are now declining, replaced by pod devices as the market adapts to regulatory pressure. Flavour preferences have also transformed: fruit flavours dominate (51% in 2025, up from 22% in 2016), while tobacco has dwindled to just 11 per cent.