For the first time in a census of England and Wales, less than half of the population (46.2%, 27.5 million people) described themselves as “Christian”, a 13.1 percentage point decrease from 59.3% in 2011
Despite this decrease, “Christian” remained the most common response to the religion question according to the Office of National Statistics
No religion” was the second most common response, increasing by 12.0 percentage points to 37.2% (22.2 million) from 25.2% (14.1 million) in 2011.
There were increases in the number of people who described themselves as “Muslim” (3.9 million, 6.5% in 2021, up from 2.7 million, 4.9% in 2011) and “Hindu” (1.0 million, 1.7% in 2021, up from 818,000, 1.5% in 2011).
Of the ten local authorities in Greater Manchester, the Manchester region had the lowest amount of people identifying as Chrsitian at just 36%,32% said they were of no religion while 22 per cent identified as Muslim
The English local authorities with the highest percentage of people reporting their religion as “Christian” were all in areas in the North West: Knowsley (66.6%), Ribble Valley (66.4%), and Copeland (65.1%).
In England, Brighton and Hove had the highest percentage of the population reporting “No religion” (55.2%), and also saw a relatively large decrease in the percentage of people describing their religion as “Christian”
The area with the highest percentage of the population who described themselves as “Muslim” was Tower Hamlets (39.9%, up from 38.0% in 2011) . Other areas with high percentages of people responding as “Muslim” included Blackburn with Darwen (35.0%) and Newham (34.8%).
The census introduced a voluntary question on religion in 2001 and twenty years later, 94 per cent of the population answered it
