13 December 2012
What's your religion? responses from the 2011 Census
A summary of the responses to the Whats your religion? question in the 2011 census for England and Wales.
Christian
- 33.2 million said they were Christian
- The number of people identifying as Christian has decreased from 71.7% in 2001 to 59.3% in 2011.
- 14.1 million said they had no religion
- The number of people saying they had no religion increased from 14.8% to 25.1% between 2001 and 2011
- Knowsley was the local authority with the highest proportion of the population saying they were Christian (80.9% of the local residents)
Other religions
- Islam is the 2nd most popular faith in England and Wales with 2.7 million people saying they are Muslim
- The number saying they are Muslim has increased from 3% in 2001 to 4.8% in 2011
- 817,000 said they were Hindu (1.5% of the population of England and Wales)
- 423,000 said they were Sikh (0.8% of the population)
- 263,000 said they were Jewish (0.5% of the population)
- 248,000 said they were Buddhist (0.4% of the population)
- 240,000 said they were followers of other faiths not listed above (0.4% of the population).
No religion
- 14.1 million said they had no religion
- The number of people saying they had no religion increased from 14.8% to 25.1% between 2001 and 2011.
- Norwich was the local authority with the highest proportion of the population saying they have no religion at 42.5%. Brighton and Hove was the next closest with 42.1% saying they had no religion.
- Caerphilly had the largest increase in the number of locals saying they had no religion with the percentage going up from 16% in 2001 to 41% in 2011.
Refuse to answer
- The "What is your religion?" question was a voluntary question in the 2011 census
- 7.2% did not answer the question.