Digital exclusion
Digital exclusion is a barrier to employment and educational opportunities, social networking, and access to everyday services, and as such has a range of negative impacts on affected individuals, including contributing to loneliness and involuntary social isolation. People may be digitally excluded for different reasons, including not having access to the required infrastructure and/or devices, lack of skills, or lack of motivation to use technology.
According to research by Lloyds Bank [1], 95% of UK adults were online in 2025, up 6.3 million since 2016 and 38% of people have increased their digital engagement since 2020. For those not yet fully engaged, the biggest motivators were around affordability, fears about control over their personal data, and lack of support to develop the necessary skills.
Research by the Centre for Social Justice [2] has found that without internet access, consumers can pay as much as 25% more for essential goods and services, while pressures on household budgets have forced many to cancel broadband contracts.
Digital exclusion in Herefordshire
The proportion of adults in Herefordshire who are either lapsed or non-internet users has declined in recent years in line with the trend nationally. There was an increase in 2020 although this was not statistically significant. In 2020, the Office for National Statistics estimated that there were around 17,000 adults (age 16+) in Herefordshire who did not use the internet.
The 2023 Community Wellbeing Survey of Herefordshire adults found that 88% of Herefordshire adults regularly accessed the internet for non-work purposes: similar to 2021 (89%). 12% did not use it regularly, again similar to 2021 (10%). However, this proportion rose for people living in the most deprived locations (19%), aged 65+ (25%), and with no formal educational qualifications (41%). Asked why, 44% said it was because they didn’t need it, however 31% said they didn’t have the skills, rising to 48% amongst Housing Association tenants.
While 35% of people said their use of the internet had increased since that start of the COVID-19 pandemic, for 5% it had reduced, rising to 12% among those in the most deprived locations, 11% amongst Housing Association tenants and 12% of people with an ethnic minority background.
41% of people were positive about more things being provided online: a 17 percentage point decrease from 2021 (58%). 35% were concerned about more things being provided online: an increase of 13 percentage points from 2021 and the proportion was higher amongst those aged 55+ (46%), the economically inactive (44%) (likely primarily driven by age), people with no formal educational qualifications (43%), those with a disability (43%) or those who receive care (43%), and those who do not use the internet regularly (54%).
A 2022 survey of Telecare Users in Herefordshire found that 49% did not use the internet (down slightly from 52% in 2019), 36% of Telecare users said they were not confident using the internet.
[1] 2025 Consumer Digital Index, Lloyds Banking Group, 2025.
[2] Left Out: How to tackle digital exclusion and reduce the poverty premium, Centre for Social Justice, August 2023.