National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles has found that frequency of sex has fallen by 20% over the past decade.
Some have pointed to a "recession impact", a result of depression or even a consquence of people playing with their iPads in bed as the cause for the decline.
The survey results revealed that, on average, people aged 16-44 have sex just under five times a month, compared with figures of 6.2 for men and 6.3 for women in the previous survey in 2000.
Interviews for the latest survey were carried out between September 2010 and August 2012 as Britain struggled to recover from 2008's decline in GDP and flirted with a double-dip recession, compared to the late 1990s when the economy was flourishing.
Professor Kaye Wellings, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the recession may have had an impact on the unemployed, but also those in employment having to work harder.
‘There's a strong relationship between unemployment and low sexual function, according to the literature,’ she said.
‘That is to do with low self-esteem, depression. At the other end of the scale iPads and computers have all breached the boundary between the home and the bedroom.’
The decline is explained in part by the fact that fewer people in Britain are married or cohabiting and therefore have less opportunity to have sex, although sexual frequency has fallen even among people who live with a partner.
A lack of interest in sex was a common problem among men (14.9%) and women (34.2%) interviewed for the survey and about half of women and four out of 10 men reported having had a recent sexual problem.
However, only one in 10 respondents said they were worried or distressed about their sex life.
Asked whether it mattered that Britons were having less sex, Wellings said:
'It would be unhealthy if people weren't having as much sex as they want.'