Tobacco statistics

Caused by smoking

Smoking is the largest cause of cancer in the UK

smoking 15 percent

Caused by smoking

Smoking is the largest cause of cancer in the UK

Smoking causes at least 15 different types of cancer: lung, larynx, oesophagus, oral cavity, nasopharynx, pharynx, bladder, pancreas, kidney, liver, stomach, bowel, cervix, leukaemia, and ovarian cancers.

Incidence of some smoking-related cancers is decreasing thanks largely to decreases in smoking prevalence; these include lung cancer (decreasing in males), oesophageal cancer (decreasing in females), and bladder cancer. However, unless there is further progress in reducing smoking prevalence, these decreases are expected to slow and eventually stop.[1]

Tobacco is the largest preventable cause of cancer and death in the UK.[1, 2] and one of the largest preventable causes of illness and death in the world. [2] Tobacco caused an estimated 125,000 deaths in the UK in 2019 - around a fifth (20%) of all deaths from all causes, that’s around one person every five minutes .[2] It caused an estimated 55,000 cancer deaths in the UK in 2019 - more than a quarter (28%) of all cancer deaths.[2] Smoking (both active smoking and environmental tobacco smoke) causes 3 in 20 (15%) cancer cases in the UK.[1]

See also

Want to generate bespoke preventable cancers stats statements? Download our interactive statement generator.

Want the latest figures on smoking, overweight and obesity prevalence across the UK arranged in statements and graphs (with sources) that you can simply paste into your work? Explore our Prevention Data Hub

Find out more about the definitions and evidence for this data

More information about our methodology for risk factor evidence

View our health information about smoking and cancer

References

  1. Brown KF, Rumgay H, Dunlop C, et al. The fraction of cancer attributable to known risk factors in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the UK overall in 2015. British Journal of Cancer 2018.
  2. Global Health Data Exchange. Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Results Tool. Available from http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool. Accessed October 2020.

About this data

Data is for: UK, 2015, ICD-10 C00-C97 excl. C44.

Last reviewed:

Local Cancer Statistics

Local level cancer statistics; search profiles by area, constituency or health board in the UK..

Interested in an overview for Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland?

Cancer stats explained

See information and explanations on terminology used for statistics and reporting of cancer, and the methods used to calculate some of our statistics.

Citation

You are welcome to reuse this Cancer Research UK content for your own work.
Credit us as authors by referencing Cancer Research UK as the primary source. Suggested styles are:

Web content: Cancer Research UK, full URL of the page, Accessed [month] [year].
Publications: Cancer Research UK ([year of publication]), Name of publication, Cancer Research UK.
Graphics (when reused unaltered): Credit: Cancer Research UK.
Graphics (when recreated with differences): Based on a graphic created by Cancer Research UK.

When Cancer Research UK material is used for commercial reasons, we encourage a donation to our life-saving research.
Send a cheque payable to Cancer Research UK to: Cancer Research UK, 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ or

Donate online

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the many organisations across the UK which collect, analyse, and share the data which we use, and to the patients and public who consent for their data to be used. Find out more about the sources which are essential for our statistics.