The 2021 census for England and Wales also shows an increase in the number of people with no religion.
Image source, Getty ImagesFewer than half of the population of England and Wales have described themselves as Christians for the first time, the 2021 census has revealed.
People who said they had no religion increased by 12 percentage points, while the number of people identifying as Muslim increased by 1.2 million.
Some 46.2% of the population said they were Christian – 27.5 million people, compared with 33.3 million in 2011.
The census is carried out every 10 years.
Run by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), it explores how British society is being shaped from people’s answers to questions about themselves, their household and their home.
The results help organisations make decisions on planning and funding public services including transport, education and healthcare.
The 2021 survey was held on 21 March of that year.
The results showed the number of people describing themselves as Christian dropped by 13.1 percentage points from 59.2% in 2011.
The ONS said the census question broadly asked “what is your religion” – referring to people’s affiliation, rather than their beliefs or active religious practices.
Professor Linda Woodhead, head of Theology and Religious Studies at King’s College London, said ticking “no religion” could still indicate a number of different beliefs.
She told BBC News: “Some will be atheist, a lot will be agnostic – they just say, ‘I don’t really know’ – and some will be spiritual and be doing spiritual things.
“But they don’t want to identify with a particular religion, and certainly not with institutional religion.”
Meanwhile, London is the most religiously diverse region of England, with just over 25.3% of people reporting a religion other than Christianity.
And south-west England is shown to be the least religiously diverse region, with 3.2% selecting a religion other than Christian.
A total of 81.7% of residents in England and Wales identified their ethnic group as white on the day of the 2021 census, down from 86.0% a decade earlier.