Using Ofcom and Office of National Statistics data on internet access figures from 2018, we can see that there are still significant levels of digital exclusion, for example:

The Government Digital Service has developed a digital inclusion scale which maps individuals’ digital capability on a scale from 1 to 9, from those who don’t use the internet at all to digital experts.
Some sections of the population are more likely to be digitally excluded than others. These are:
- older people
- people in lower income groups
- people without a job
- people in social housing
- people with disabilities
- people with fewer educational qualifications excluded left school before 16
- people living in rural areas
- homeless people
- people whose first language is not English
For more information on digitally excluded populations in the UK see the annual UK Consumer Digital Index from Lloyds Bank. The 2021 Consumer Digital Index shows:
- 11 million people (21%) lack the digital skills needed for everyday life
- 8 million (36%) of working adults lack the digital skills needed for work
- 20% of people aged 65+ are digitally excluded
- people with a registered disability are 28% less likely to have digital skills needed for everyday life
- 10 million adults are at risk of digital exclusion and therefore exclusion from wider society as we know it

Digital Partnerships
At Achieve Foundation, we know from experience that the best way to help digitally excluded people is to provide one to one support with trusted digital champions.
A major drawback to digital inclusion is the resourcing of this support in terms of financing and availability of skilled champions. We believe that this can only be solved through partnership and collaboration.
Partnership is an essential foundation for digital inclusion strategies as no single organisation can solve this issue alone.
Therefore, Achieve Foundation continues to work with a wide variety of partners to build local digital inclusion partnerships.
Get in touch to partner with us to end digital inequalities.
This information is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated.
Link: https://digital.nhs.uk/about-nhs-digital/our-work/digital-inclusion/what-digital-inclusion-is