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Digital Skills in Northern Ireland

Published 27 January 2026

All tables associated with this report can be downloaded from the NISRA website.

1. Overview

This paper examines the level of digital skills of people aged 16 and over in Northern Ireland for the period April 2024 to March 2025 (referred to as 2024/25), as sourced from the Continuous Household Survey (CHS). Additional analysis of digital skills levels is also provided for sex, age, labour market status, deprivation quintile (least and most deprived), highest qualification level, and disability status.

1.1 Key points

  • Over a third of people aged 16 and over in Northern Ireland had an above basic level of digital skills in 2024/25 (37% or 566,000 people).
  • Almost one in five people (16%) had no digital skills (249,000 people).
  • Similar proportions of females reported having no digital skills (17%), basic digital skills (47%) and above basic digital skills (36%) when compared to males (16%, 47% and 37% respectively).
  • Those respondents aged 65 and over were four times as likely to report that they had no digital skills (41%) than those aged 16 to 49 (10%).
  • Almost a third (32%) of those who were economically inactive had no digital skills in contrast to only 6.2% of those who were economically active.
  • The least deprived areas in NI had a higher proportion (49%) of above basic digital skills when compared to the most deprived areas (29%).
  • Over two-fifths (45%) of respondents with no qualifications reported having no digital skills, compared to 6.7% of those with at least degree level qualifications.
  • The proportion of people with no disabilities reporting above basic digital skills was 12 percentage points (pps) higher than those with disabilities.

1.2 Context

This paper presents the level of digital skills held by people aged 16 or over in NI and is based on data collected from the Continuous Household Survey (CHS) from April 2024 to March 2025.

Respondents to the CHS were asked whether they had used the internet in the last twelve months to access or perform a list of functions.

These functions were collated to form four digital use sub-groups:

  1. use of online services
  2. finding information online
  3. communicating online
  4. using the internet safely and securely

A measure of the level of digital skills of respondents i.e. no skills, basic skills or above basic skills, was derived using the four digital use sub-groups, as detailed throughout the publication.

Three of the digital use sub-groups above are broadly in line with several of the digital competence domains captured within the Eurostat Digital Skills Indicator (sourced from the ‘community survey on ICT usage by households and individuals’). In addition a ‘safety’ sub-group has been included for the NI data based on those within the ‘being safe and legal online’ aspect of the Essential Digital Skills Framework.


2. Digital skill level

This section provides an overview of the level of digital skills held for Northern Ireland (NI) as a whole, alongside further analysis by sex, age, labour market status, deprivation quintile (least and most deprived), highest qualification level, and disability status.

The analysis contained in this section is based on the following definitions, where the sub-groups are use of online services, finding information online, communicating online and using the internet safely and securely. (See 4.3 for more detail):

No Skills: not having accessed or performed any of the listed online functions.
Basic Skills: having used the internet for at least one of the listed functions in communicating online, finding information, using online services or understand internet safety features but not more than one in all.
Above basic: having used the internet for more than one of the listed functions across all sub-groups (communicating online, finding information, using online services and understand internet safety features).

2.1 Northern Ireland

Key findings:

  • The largest proportion of people aged 16 and over in NI had a basic level of digital skills in 2024/25 (47% or 728,000 people), while the smallest proportion had no digital skills (16% or 249,000 people).
  • Almost two-fifths of people had an above basic level of digital skills (37% or 566,000 people).

Figure 1: Majority of people aged 16 and over in NI have above basic digital skills

Digital skill level, aged 16 and over, NI, April 2024 to March 2025
Chart
Table
Digital skill level Proportion of aged 16 and over (%)
No skills 16.2
Basic skills 47.2
Above basic skills 36.7


Figure 1 presents the digital skill level of those aged 16 and over in NI. It shows that fewer than one in five people had no digital skills (16%), meaning in the last twelve months, they had not used the internet for online services (such as internet banking or making online purchases), had not found information online, communicated online, and were not aware of a range of internet safety features.

Just under half of respondents, the largest proportion, had a basic level of digital skills (47%). This meant they had used the internet for more than one online service, found different types of information online, communicated online in more than one way, and were aware of multiple internet safety features.

Almost two out of five respondents had an above basic level of digital skills (37%), meaning they had accessed the internet for at least one function. However, they did not use a range of functions across all four aspects of digital use.

The digital skill level in Northern Ireland differs as various cohorts are compared as shown below.

2.2 Sex

  • Similar proportions of males and females reported having no digital skills (16% and 17% respectively), basic digital skills (47% and 47% respectively), and an above basic level of digital skills (37% and 36% respectively).

2.3 Age
There were large differences in digital skill levels between those aged under 50 and those aged 50 and over.

  • Four times as many people aged 65 and over had no digital skills than people aged 16 to 49 (10%).
  • The largest proportion of those aged 35 to 49 had above basic digital skills (47%) while for all other age-bands, the majority of respondents had basic digital skills.

2.4 Labour Market Status
There were notable differences in digital skill level between those who were economically active and those who were economically inactive.

  • Almost a third (32%) of those who were economically inactive had no digital skills, compared to only 6.2% of those that were economically active.
  • Less than 1 in 5 (18%) economically inactive people had above basic digital skills, in contrast to just under five in ten (48%) of the economically active.

2.5 Deprivation quintile
Differences in digital skill levels were evident between those who were in the least deprived areas and those in the most deprived areas.

  • A higher proportion of those in the most deprived areas had basic skills (56%) compared to those in the least deprived (37%).
  • The largest difference (20pps) was recorded between those with above basic skills. The most deprived areas in NI had lower levels of above basic digital skills (29%) than the least deprived areas (49%).

2.6 Qualification level
Digital skill levels vary by the level of qualifications held by people in NI.

  • Almost half (45%) of respondents with no qualifications reported having no digital skills. This is almost 7 times greater than the proportion of people who have at least a degree level qualification and no digital skills (6.7%).
  • Those whose highest qualification was degree level or above reported the highest proportion of above basic digital skills (54%), which is in contrast to the 9% of people with no qualifications.

2.7 Disability
People with disabilities were more likely to have no digital skills and lower proportions of above basic skills than those without a disability. However, they had a similar proportion of basic digital skills to those people without a disability.

  • People with disabilities reported a similar proportion of basic digital skills to those without disabilities (47% and 48% respectively).
  • People with disabilities reported a lower proportion (by 12pps) of above basic digital skills compared to those without disabilities (28% compared to 40%).

3. Understanding digital skills

This section takes a closer look at what is actually driving these levels of digital skills in NI.

4. Further information

The information presented in this publication is derived from the Continuous Household Survey (CHS) April 2024-March 2025 (24/25), which was conducted by the Central Survey Unit (CSU) of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA).

A summary of further information is contained below. However users are advised to access the Digital Skills Supplementary Document or the CHS page for additional information relating to the CHS, quality and methodology.

4.1 Data Source

The questionnaire

The questionnaire has two distinct parts; a household schedule and an individual schedule. One person on behalf of the entire household answers the household schedule, while all participating adults in the household answer the individual schedule.

In a change to the previous 2 years, the questionnaire returned to a split sample. This means that depending on the serial number of the questionnaire (even or odd) the respondents would be exposed to a different set of questions for part of the questionnaire. This was implemented to reduce survey length.

The sample

The sample for the survey consisted of a systematic random sample of addresses selected from the NISRA Address Register. The NISRA Address Register is maintained by Census Branch and is created by merging the POINTER database with additional records, and removing duplicates and communal establishments. The survey samples 9,000 addresses throughout the survey year (1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025). The NISRA Address Register provides a good sampling frame of addresses, but contains no information about the number of people living at an address.

Each interview begins with the interviewer counting all members of the household. Anyone aged 16 or over is eligible to take part in the survey and there can be multiple respondents at each household.

For the April 2024 to March 2025 year, 4,113 households took part in the survey. Within those households, a total of 4,584 individuals took part in the survey.

4.2 Methodology and Quality information

Weighting

In order to estimate the number of people at each digital skill level, it is necessary to gross the findings from the survey to the NI population. The respondent data is weighted to the NI population by local government district, age group, and sex. This ensures that the sample is representative of the overall NI population.

Sampling error

The CHS is a sampling survey and therefore estimates obtained from it are subject to sampling variability. This means that if many samples were drawn, each would give a different result. Table 1 shows the sampling variability of the digital skill levels of NI respondents using 95% confidence intervals. We would expect that, in 95% of samples, the range would contain the true value.

Table 1: Sampling variability of digital skill level in Northern Ireland, aged 16 and over, April 2024 to March 2025
Digital skill level Proportion of aged 16 and over (%) Lower limit (%) Upper limit (%)
No skills 16.2 15.1 17.2
Basic skills 47.2 45.7 48.6
Above basic skills 36.7 35.3 38.1

Further detail on the representativeness of the sample, comparisons between CHS and the Mid-Year Population Estimates, weighting and sampling error can be found in the Digital Skills Supplementary Document.

4.3 Question and definitions

CHS question and digital use sub-groups

The following questions are used to determine whether a respondent had used the internet in the past twelve months to access or perform a list of functions.

In the past 12 months have you used the internet for any of the following? (Select all that apply)

  • Online purchases
  • Selling online
  • Internet banking
  • Used online learning resources
  • Finding info non-public goods/services
  • Seeking health-related info
  • Sending/receiving emails
  • Telephoning/video calls
  • Participating in social networks
  • Reading newspapers or news websites online
  • None

In the past 12 months, did you practice any of the following while using the internet? (Select all that apply)

  • Setting privacy settings
  • Identifying secure websites
  • Recognising suspicious links
  • None

    With the exception of ‘none’, all other responses were subsequently grouped into four different aspects of digital use (sub-groups). Table 1 below shows the 13 online functions and the sub-group they are included in.
Table 2: Digital use sub-groups and online functions
Online function
Use of online services
Online purchases
Internet banking
Used online learning resources
Selling online
Finding information online
Finding info on non-public goods/services
Reading newspapers or news websites online
Seeking health-related info
Communicating online
Sending/receiving emails
Participating in social networks
Telephoning/video calls
Using the internet safely and securely
Recognising suspicious links
Setting privacy settings
Identifying secure websites

Definitions

Below are the definitions of terminology used throughout the report.

Labour Market Status
Analysis is provided for those who are economically active and economically inactive within this publication. Economically active are those aged 16 and over who are either in employment or unemployed. The economically inactive are people who are neither in employment nor unemployed. This group includes, for example, all those who were looking after a home or retired.

Employment
People aged 16 or over who did at least one hour of paid work in the reference week (whether as an employee or self-employed); those who had a paid job that they were temporarily away from; those on government-supported training and employee programmes and those doing unpaid family work.

Unemployment
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) defines unemployment as those aged 16 and over without a job who were able to start work in the two weeks following their interview and had either looked for work in the four weeks prior to interview or were waiting to start a job they had already obtained.

Deprivation Quintile
The Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure is the official measure of spatial deprivation for NI and comprises seven domains of deprivation as follows: income, employment, health, education, proximity to services, living environment and crime. Where 1 is the most deprived and 5 is the least deprived. Further details on deprivation measurement in NI can be found at Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure 2017 (NIMDM2017)

Highest qualification level
Respondents are sorted based on their highest level of qualification. Those who did not state their highest level of qualification have been removed from analysis.

Disability Status
Respondents are classified as having a disability based on the Equality Act (2010) definition of disability:

You’re disabled under the Equality Act 2010 if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities.

‘Substantial’ is more than minor or trivial, e.g. it takes much longer than it usually would to complete a daily task like getting dressed.
‘Long-term’ means 12 months or more, e.g. a breathing condition that develops as a result of a lung infection.

Two questions are used within this publication to derive disability, based on the GSS harmonised definition of disability:
HLONGILL - Do you have any physical or mental health conditions or illnesses lasting or expecting to last for 12 months or more?

  1. Yes
  2. No

REDACT - Does your condition(s) or illness(es) reduce your ability to carry out day-to-day activities?

  1. Yes, a lot
  2. Yes, a little
  3. Not at all

To be classified as having a disability respondents have to say that they do have a physical or mental health condition or illness expecting to last for 12 months or more which reduces their ability to carry out day-to-day activities a little or a lot.


Percentage calculation

Proportions are calculated as a percentage of the total population of grouping. For example, the percentage of no skills for the 16 to 24 age group is calculated by dividing those aged 16 to 24 who had no digital skills by the total population of 16 to 24 year olds.

Rounding

Throughout this report, figures less than 100 are rounded to two-significant figures.

5.Contact

If you require further information about the figures contained in this publication or the accompanying tables, would like to provide feedback on the publication content, or be added to the mailing list please contact:

Patrick O’Kane

Email: Patrick.Okane@nisra.gov.uk
Web: Digital skills in Northern Ireland