Digital accessibility affects participation in communication, public services, education, banking and everyday online tasks. The available evidence combines global disability estimates, 2024 European Union participation data, automated web testing, screen-reader surveys and older UK digital-divide measures, so each figure below keeps its population, period and measurement type explicit.
Key Digital Accessibility Statistics
These figures summarize the most broadly useful findings:
- An estimated 1.3 billion people experienced significant disability worldwide in the 2023 fact sheet.
- Significant disability represented an estimated 16% of the world’s population, or about 1 in 6 people, in 2023.
- In 2024, 87.2% of EU people with a disability aged 16–74 used the internet during the previous 12 months.
- In 2024, 95.2% of EU people without a disability aged 16–74 used the internet during the previous 12 months.
- Regular internet use in 2024 reached 78.2% among EU people severely limited in activity aged 16–74.
- In 2024, 65.1% of EU people with a disability found information on goods and services online during the previous three months.
- In 2024, 57.2% of EU people with a disability reported online banking during the previous three months.
- In 2024, 63.3% of EU people with a disability used a public-authority website or app during the previous 12 months.
- In February 2024, automated testing found WCAG 2 failures on 95.9% of the top one million home pages.
- The average home page in WebAIM’s February 2024 audit had 56.8 automatically detected accessibility errors.
- Low-contrast text appeared on 81.0% of the top one million audited home pages in February 2024.
- Missing alternative text for images appeared on 54.5% of the audited home pages in February 2024.
- WebAIM’s December 2023–January 2024 screen-reader survey received 1,539 valid responses.
- JAWS was the primary desktop or laptop screen reader for 40.5% of respondents in WebAIM’s 2024 survey.
- VoiceOver was used for mobile screen-reading by 70.6% of respondents in WebAIM’s December 2023–January 2024 survey.
- Only 34.6% of WebAIM screen-reader survey respondents said web accessibility improved over the previous year.
- In the UK in 2018, 23.3% of disabled adults were internet non-users, compared with 6.0% of adults without a disability.
Contents
- The global population affected
- EU internet participation and disability gaps
- Online tasks and public-service access
- WebAIM Million audit findings
- Screen-reader users and practical barriers
- UK digital accessibility trends and caveats
Digital Accessibility Statistics: The Global Population Affected
The World Health Organization’s 2023 fact sheet estimates that 1.3 billion people experience significant disability worldwide, equivalent to 16% of the global population, or about 1 in 6 people. This is a global estimate of significant disability, not a count of people requiring one identical digital accommodation.
Source: Disability — World Health Organization.
Disability experiences and accessibility needs are heterogeneous. WHO also reports that people with disabilities face transportation that is inaccessible or unaffordable 15 times more often than people without disabilities; this is broader accessibility context rather than a digital-use measure.
The same 2023 fact sheet references WHO’s 2022 global report on health equity for people with disabilities, which identifies 40 key actions. That is a policy-framework count, not an implementation rate.
Digital Accessibility Data on EU Internet Participation and Disability Gaps
Eurostat’s 2024 ICT statistics use self-assessed activity limitation due to health problems lasting, or expected to last, at least six months as an approximation for disability. The survey covers people aged 16–74, excluding people older than 74.
| EU population, ages 16–74 | Internet use in previous 12 months, 2024 | Regular use, at least weekly |
|---|---|---|
| Without a disability | 95.2% | 93.5% |
| With an activity limitation | 87.2% | 86.0% |
| With severe activity limitation | Not separately supplied | 78.2% |
Source: Disability statistics — access to information and communication technologies — Eurostat.
The age pattern is also material. Among EU 16–24-year-olds in 2024, regular internet use was 98.7% for people without a disability, 98.1% for people limited in activity and 87.4% for people severely limited in activity.
Among EU 55–74-year-olds, regular use was 84.3% for people without a disability, 78.2% for those limited in activity and 70.8% for those severely limited in activity. These are survey categories, not clinical diagnoses, and the ICT survey does not cover people over 74.
Digital Accessibility Trends in Online Tasks and Public Services
Internet participation does not prove that a website or application is accessible, nor that a person completed a task successfully. Eurostat’s 2024 activity measures show where people with and without disabilities reported using online services during specified periods.
| Online activity, EU ages 16–74 | Without a disability | With a disability | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internet learning | 35.8% | 25.0% | Previous 3 months |
| Telephoning or video calls | 75.3% | 62.2% | Previous 3 months |
| Finding goods or services information | 77.5% | 65.1% | Previous 3 months |
| Online banking | 69.3% | 57.2% | Previous 3 months |
| Social-network participation | 67.6% | 50.8% | Previous 3 months |
| Online medical appointment | 39.7% | 40.0% | Previous 3 months |
Source: Disability statistics — access to information and communication technologies — Eurostat.
Making a medical appointment was reported by 39.7% of people without a disability and 40.0% of people with a disability, a near-equal result that does not establish that appointment systems were accessible. The other activity gaps measure reported participation, not technical conformance.
Public-service activity was measured over the previous 12 months. Interacting with public authorities online was reported by 56.8% of people without a disability and 52.1% of people with a disability, although e-government data were incomplete for Denmark, Estonia and Croatia.
- Requesting official documents or certificates online: 20.1% without a disability and 16.6% with a disability.
- Making an appointment or reservation with public authorities online: 35.2% without a disability and 32.1% with a disability.
- Using a public-authority website or app: 71.4% without a disability and 63.3% with a disability.
These figures are self-reported activity measures and do not diagnose why a gap exists. They also do not distinguish inaccessible design from differences in need, access, confidence, equipment or other circumstances.
Web Accessibility Statistics from the 2024 WebAIM Million Audit
WebAIM’s February 2024 audit examined the top 1,000,000 home pages using automated tests. It found automatically detected WCAG 2 failures on 95.9% of home pages, while the average page had 56.8 detected errors.
Source: The WebAIM Million — 2024 report.
The distribution was uneven but still broad: 22.2% of audited home pages had five or fewer detected errors, and 31.2% had ten or fewer. Low automated-error counts do not prove accessibility because automated testing covers only reliably testable failures.
The most common findings were:
- Low-contrast text: 81.0% of home pages.
- Missing alternative text for images: 54.5%.
- Missing form-input labels: 48.6%.
- Empty links: 44.6%.
- Empty buttons: 28.2%.
- Missing document language: 17.1%.
The six most common WCAG failure categories represented 96.4% of all detected errors. WebAIM emphasizes that automated results cannot establish full WCAG conformance or capture every user barrier, and its error-density figure should be treated cautiously.
The audit also measured page complexity. The nearly 1.2 billion audited page elements averaged 1,173 elements per page; average complexity rose 11.8% from 1,050 elements in February 2023 and 50% from 782 elements in 2019.
The top 100,000 home pages averaged 1,424 elements, compared with 980 among the last 100,000. Government home pages averaged 35.7 errors, 37.2% below the overall average, while shopping home pages averaged 83.3 errors, 46.6% above it; these are descriptive category comparisons, not direct user-impact measures.
Screen-Reader Statistics and Practical Accessibility Barriers
WebAIM’s December 2023–January 2024 screen-reader survey received 1,539 valid responses from an international, self-selected and uncontrolled sample. The results describe respondents, not all screen-reader users.
| Primary desktop or laptop screen reader | Share of respondents |
|---|---|
| JAWS | 40.5% |
| NVDA | 37.7% |
| VoiceOver | 9.7% |
Source: WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey #10 Results.
Mobile use was widespread: 91.3% of respondents used a screen reader on a mobile device, and VoiceOver accounted for 70.6% of mobile screen-reader use. The survey notes that these figures can have different denominators, so they should be labeled separately rather than combined.
Other 2024 responses indicate practical expectations and perceptions:
- 78.1% considered free or low-cost desktop screen readers viable alternatives to more expensive commercial readers; this is perceived viability, not a measured performance or affordability outcome.
- 71.6% reported navigating by headings when exploring page content.
- 31.8% reported using landmarks or regions, up from 25.6% in 2021; this is not a population trend estimate because the samples were self-selected.
- Only 34.6% said web accessibility had improved over the previous year.
An earlier WebAIM survey provides historical evidence about particular barriers: 31% found repeated links somewhat difficult and 13% very difficult; 37% found Flash somewhat difficult and 34% very difficult; and 31% found Acrobat/PDF somewhat difficult and 17% very difficult.
Source: Survey of Preferences of Screen Readers Users. Flash is obsolete technology, so these are historical user findings rather than current prevalence measures.
UK Digital Accessibility Trends and Measurement Caveats
The UK Office for National Statistics report, published in 2019 using 2017–2018 measures, defines an internet non-user as someone who had never used the internet or had not used it in the previous three months. Its disability definition is a long-term condition limiting day-to-day activities.
In 2018, 23.3% of disabled UK adults were internet non-users, compared with 6.0% of adults without a disability. Accessing the internet on the go was reported by 59% of disabled adults and 82% of adults without a disability.
Source: Exploring the UK’s digital divide — Office for National Statistics.
The composition of internet non-users also varied by age. Among UK internet non-users aged 16–24 in 2017, 60% were disabled, and the same share of internet non-users aged 75 and over were disabled; neither figure is the percentage of all disabled people in that age group who were non-users.
The ONS report also gives non-disability context: the share of Bangladeshi adults who were internet non-users fell from 31.4% in 2011 to 8.0% in 2018, while the UK adult rate in the cited comparison fell from 20.3% to 10.0%. This is an ethnicity-specific digital-divide trend, not a disability-specific accessibility measure.
Taken together, these sources measure different constructs: disability prevalence, internet participation, online activity, automated webpage errors, assistive-technology experience and historical non-use. Comparing them requires keeping the geography, population, period, definition and measurement method attached to every statistic.