Drinkaware Monitor 2025

Background

In addition to tracking changes in key drinking behaviours over time, our 2025 Drinkaware Monitor explored how UK drinkers’ think about their own drinking, how and why they are moderating, and the prevalence of moderate drinking within social circles. Additionally, the 2025 Monitor also explored how UK drinkers view alcohol in the wider context of health, and included qualitative research on UK drinkers’ approach to moderation.

Key findings

Drinking trends continued from 2024

• UK adults are typically drinking less often in 2025 than they did in previous years, with 14% drinking four or more times per week in 2025 compared to 18% in 2018.
  
  
• When they do drink, they are also less likely to binge drink and to exceed the Chief Medical Officers’ low-risk drinking guidelines in 2025 than they were in 2018. 11% binge drink at least weekly in 2025 compared to 15% in 2018, whilst 82% now drink within the guidelines compared to 77% in 2018.
  
  
• However, compared to 2024, there has been little change in how often or how much UK drinkers are drinking. 

Being surrounded by moderate drinking prompts reflection among UK drinkers 

• One in five (22%) UK drinkers know someone who is trying to cut back on their drinking. 
  
  
• More than half (57%) of these drinkers said that knowing this person has affected their own drinking in some way. 
  
  
• 30% said that it has made them more conscious of their drinking habits.

Moderate drinking may ripple through social circles

• UK drinkers who know someone that is cutting back are almost twice as likely as to have successfully reduced their own alcohol consumption in the last year (46% vs. 24% of UK drinkers who do not know anyone trying to cut back on their drinking).

Risky drinkers generally see themselves as 'normal'

• Currently, too few risky drinkers (those drinking 15 units or more per week) are trying to cut back. 
  
  
• This may be because 57% think that they are a fairly normal drinker, and 42% think that there is nothing they need to change about their drinking. 

Health concerns chiefly motivate UK drinkers to moderate...

• 64% of UK drinkers who are currently moderating are doing so due to some kind of health concern.
  
  
• Whilst almost half (47%) say that learning about an increased physical health risk from alcohol makes them want to cut back.

...However, this is not always the case

• Some groups may be particularly motivated to moderate for other reasons, so may respond to different messages. 
  
  
• 44% of younger drinkers (aged 18-34) currently moderate to save money (vs. 23% of drinkers aged 55+). 
  
  
• 34% of ethnic minority drinkers currently moderate to avoid getting drunk (vs. 27% of white drinkers).

Drinkaware can help create more ripple effects

• One in five (21%) UK adults have been made aware of the health risks associated with alcohol by Drinkaware – second only to the NHS (27%).
  
  
• We want to work with actors across the system to use these insights, and our reach, to empower more UK drinkers to cut back on their drinking – normalising moderate drinking within society, and creating more ripple effects within social circles.

View the UK report below or download it. You can also view findings for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland in our individual nation reports or download them below.

For more information on research objectives, survey questions and methodology, see the tabs at the bottom of this page. Alternatively, download our technical report.