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20
May
2025
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11:53
Europe/London
Counting on Everyone: Profiling the Christian population in England
Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) have been commissioned by the Church of England to produce a demographic profile of the Christian population in England from the 2021 census.
As part of the church鈥檚 work to ensure diversity and inclusivity in their work, they asked us to use 2021 census data to profile the demographic changes in the population in England, with a special focus on religion and ethnicity.
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Key findings
- There was a significant fall in the Christian population, from 37.3 million (72%) in 2001 to 26.2 million (46%) in 2021.
- At the same time the number of Muslims (1.5 million to 3.8 million), Hindus (0.5 million to 1 million) and those with no religion (7.2 million to 20.7 million) has more than doubled.
- There has been a significant drop in the percentage of White British, White Irish and mixed ethnicity groups (e.g. in 2001 82% of White British respondents identified as Christian compared with 49% in 2021). Most other ethnic categories saw a more gradual decline.
- Across most ethnic categories, younger people are less likely to say they are Christian.
- Looking at migration history, some ethnic categories (White British, White other, Indian, Asian other and black African and Caribbean, recent arrivals are more likely to be Christian than those born in the UK)
- Migration has contributed to the growth in the Christian population recently with 1.2 million Christians migrating to the UK between 2001 and 2011 and 1.9 million between 2011 and 2021 compared to only 0.4 million between 1991 and 2001. The majority of Christian migrants between 2011 and 2021 came from Europe.
See the report for more detailed data from each region of England. The report is written by .