Over one quarter of Londoners do not drink alcohol: survey

LONDON - More than a quarter of Londoners do not drink alcohol, a British national survey of drinking habits revealed Tuesday.

In the British capital, 26.6 percent of people say they do not drink alcohol, the highest proportion in the island country, the survey showed.

This was linked to the capital's ethnic diversity, according to the British Office of National Statistics (ONS).

Nationwide, 20.4 percent of people, about 10.4 million, said that they did not drink, with teetotalism most common among the people from 16 years old to 24 years old, it said.

The ONS' annual survey of adult drinking habits estimated that 29.2 million adults drink alcohol. High earners were most likely to drink.

Almost 70 percent in managerial and professional occupations, such as doctors, lawyers and teachers, drank alcohol in the week before they were interviewed by the ONS.

The figure fell to 51 percent among those in routine and manual occupations, such as labourers, bar staff, lorry drivers and care workers.

There were 5,507 alcohol-specific deaths in England in 2016, a 4 percent increase form 2015.