2011 Census: a low-down on religion

The publication of the latest tranche of Census 2011 figures on ethnicity and national diversity, international migrants and religion contains interesting data on the changed make up of England and Wales.

According the data released today by the Office for National Statistics, Christians make up the largest religious group with 33.2 million people (59.3 per cent of the population), identifying themselves as Christians.

The second largest religious group in England and Wales are Muslims with 2.7 million people (4.8 per cent of the population).

On other religions, 817,000 people identified themselves as Hindu (1.5 per cent of population); 423,000 people identified as Sikh (0.8 per cent); 263,000 people as Jewish (0.5 per cent) and 248,000 people as Buddhist (0.4 per cent).

Christians formed the majority religion across most areas in England and Wales. In over nine in ten areas, the proportion of people who were Christian was over 45%. It was the largest religion in all local authorities except Tower Hamlets where there were more people who identified as Muslim.

Muslims tended to be concentrated in particular areas of England. In over half of local authorities the proportion of the population who were Muslim was under 1 per cent. In over three-quarters of areas it was under 6 per cent.

The areas with the highest proportion of Muslims were in London with the boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Newham having 34.5 per cent and 32.0 per cent respectively, and Redbridge and Waltham Forest having proportions of the population higher than 20 per cent. There were several areas outside London with proportions higher than 20 per cent including Blackburn with Darwen in the North West (27.0 per cent), Bradford in Yorkshire and the Humber, Luton in East of England, Slough in South East, and Birmingham in the West Midlands.

On changes in the last ten years, the figures show that between 2001 and 2011 there has been a decrease in the number of people who identify as Christian (from 71.7 per cent to 59.3 per cent) and an increase in those reporting no religious affiliation (from 14.8 per cent to 25.1 per cent).

There were increases in the other main religious group categories, with the number of Muslims increasing the most (from 3.0 per cent to 4.8 per cent).

In 2011, London was the most diverse region with the highest proportion of people identifying themselves as Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Jewish. The North East and North West had the highest proportion of Christians and Wales had the highest proportion of people reporting no religion.

In comparison with 2001, London had the largest increase of Muslims (3.9 percentage points) and Hindus (1.0 percentage point). According to the 2001 Census, 607,000 people living in London identified themselves as Muslims; that is 8.5 per cent of London’s population. In the 2011 Census, the number of Muslims living in London rose to 1,012,823; that is 12.4 per cent of London’s population – an increase of 3.9%.

Knowsley was the local authority with the highest proportion of people reporting to be Christians at 80.9% and Tower Hamlets had the highest proportion of Muslims at 34.5%. Norwich had the highest proportion of the population reporting no religion at 42.5 per cent.

The religion question was the only voluntary question on the 2011 census and almost 93% of people entered a response to the question. Only 7.2 per cent of people did not answer the question.

You can see these and other datasets from the Census 2011 on the ONS website here.