Vaping continues to be a challenge within secondary schools with 52% of teachers surveyed by Teacher Tapp in October 2025, reporting it is a problem in their school. However, this is a drop from a previous survey in June 2024 when 74% of the teachers surveyed said it was a problem.
Action taken by schools is likely to have driven this drop. Two thirds of secondary schools have taken action to deter vaping. The most common actions were to put extra staff in problem areas (41%), installing extra security cameras (40%) and installing vape detectors (23%).
The survey also found that there had been a year-on-year drop in the number of secondary teachers catching students vaping or with vaping equipment. In 2024, 24%caught a student with vaping equipment at least once, whereas in 2025, that figure dropped to 18%.
A recent report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) of children globally, including the UK, found that, on average, they are nine times more likely than adults to vape. Etienne Krug WHO Director of Health Determinants, Promotion and Prevention Department warned that: “E-cigarettes are fuelling a new wave of nicotine addiction. “They are marketed as harm reduction but, in reality, are hooking kids on nicotine earlier and risk undermining decades of progress.”
The BBC commissioned the survey by Teacher Tapp and reported from a number of schools, including Wales High School in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. The headteacher Lisa McCall told the BBC that vaping had not been a problem until last year when a pupil had been offered a vape spiked with an illegal substance that led to their hospitalisation.
To combat the vaping challenge the school has spent around £3,000 on vape detectors, according to the BBC, and is also using metal-detector wands and staff to monitor corridors to deter vaping.
Our vape detector expert Natalie Harrison talks in the video below about the challenges the schools we work with face.
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill that will introduce greater restrictions on vaping, has reached the Report Stage in the Lords. In October last year over 1200 public health professionals signed an open letter urging the political parties to pass the Bill quickly as the law will also make it illegal to sell tobacco to anyone born after 1 January 2009, creating a smokefree generation.
The public health charity, ASH, said that small convenience stores are selling less tobacco, and the tobacco products they do sell are much less profitable to them than vaping products, according to analysis from the University of Edinburgh.
According to the research, the average weekly number of transactions per store which included vapes increased from 10 in 2019 to 93 in 2022 – a nine-fold increase in three years. There were less transactions including vapes than tobacco, but the gross profits per store from vape sales were equivalent to 73.4% of the value of tobacco profits, as a consequence of vapes’ high profit margins. It is likely that sales from vapes have continued to grow for small retailers since 2022, ASH said.
Responding to this research, Hazel Cheeseman, Chief Executive of ASH, said: “Tobacco is yesterday’s product. The reduction in sales benefits both the nation’s health and convenience stores who make dwindling profits from selling tobacco. At the same time vape sales have surged, and this is much more profitable for retailers.
“Responsible retailers who are already profiting from vapes should welcome regulations to improve the market, reduce appeal to children and drive out rogue traders.”
In recent years Ecl-ips has been supporting schools to help tackle the challenge that vaping among young people has given them. It has led to anti-social behaviour by children and lack of concentration in the classroom. By installing Halo Smart Sensors in their toilets, schools, such as St Joseph’s Roman Catholic High School in Horwich, Greater Manchester, have been able to monitor the problem and take swift action to stop it. If you want to find out more, please get in touch.