Less than half of Britain’s population call themselves Christian, census figures find

BRITAIN is becoming less Christian and less white, census figures showed yesterday.

Less than half the population now call themselves Christian, according to the latest snapshot that reveals the changing face of England and Wales.

Meanwhile, the number of people identifying their ethnic group as white has fallen by about 500,000 since 2011 to 48.7 million, according to the Office for National Statistics, which carries out the census every ten years.

Some 81.7 per cent described themselves as white on the day of the 2021 census, down from 86 per cent.

Among the white ethnic group, some 74.4 per cent, or 44.4 million, had their ethnic group as English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British.

This was down from 80.5 per cent, or 45.1 million.

Polish remained the most non-UK identity in 2021 followed by Romanian and Indian.

Romanian had been 16th in 2011 and has enjoyed the biggest non-UK increase, going from 73,000 to 477,000.

The study also showed that white British is now a minority in England’s biggest two cities.

In Birmingham it was down to 43 per cent compared with 52 per cent in 2011.

London fell to 37 per cent from 45 per cent.

White British now forms a minority in 14 areas — also including Leicester and Luton.

A total of 37 per cent — 22.2 million — say they are not religious, a huge jump from 2001’s 14.1 million.

The numbers identifying as Muslim had gone up to 3.9 million (6.5 per cent) from 2.7 million (4.9 per cent).

The Archbishop of York, the Most Rev Stephen Cottrell, said the country had “left behind the era when many people almost automatically identified as Christian”.

Tory MP David Morris last night said: “A driving force for the drop in those identifying as Christian or describing their ethnic group as white has been mass migration to this country over the past 20 years or so.”