5. Differences in religious affiliation across local authorities

Christians formed the majority religion across most areas in England and Wales. In over nine in ten areas, the proportion of people who were Christian was over 45 per cent . It was the largest religion in all local authorities except Tower Hamlets where there were more people who identified as Muslim.

The 13 local authorities with the highest proportions of the population reporting to be Christian were in the North West, with the highest in Knowsley at 80.9 per cent . Tower Hamlets was the lowest at 27.1 per cent . Leicester, Camden, Redbridge, Harrow and Hackney all had proportions under 40 per cent.

The proportion of people identifying with Christianity has decreased in all local authorities in England and Wales since 2001 with Kingston Upon Hull seeing the largest drop of 16.8 percentage points.

Map 1: Christian population, 2011, England and Wales local and unitary authorities

Source: Census - Office for National Statistics

Norwich had the highest proportion of people reporting no religion with 42.5 per cent , closely followed by Brighton and Hove with 42.4 per cent.

Some local authorities in Wales also reported some of the highest levels of no religion. Caerphilly had the largest percentage point increase since 2001 of 16.7 to 41.0 per cent . Blaenau Gwent, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Torfaen also saw large increases of no religion with 16.0, 15.5 and 15.4 percentage points respectively.

In London, the boroughs of Newham, Harrow, Brent and Redbridge had the lowest proportions of the population reporting no religion. Other areas under 15 per cent included Slough in the South East, and Knowsley, Blackburn with Darwen, Copeland, Ribble Valley, and St Helens in the North West.

Map 2: Population reporting no religion, 2011, England and Wales local and unitary authorities

Source: Census - Office for National Statistics

Muslims tended to be concentrated in particular areas of England. In over half of local authorities the proportion of the population who were Muslim was under 1 per cent . In over three-quarters of areas it was under 6 per cent.

The areas with the highest proportion of Muslims were in London with the boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Newham having 34.5 per cent and 32.0 per cent respectively, and Redbridge and Waltham Forest having proportions of the population higher than 20 per cent . There were several areas outside London with proportions higher than 20 per cent including Blackburn with Darwen in the North West (27.0 per cent ), Bradford in Yorkshire and the Humber, Luton in East of England, Slough in South East, and Birmingham in the West Midlands.

The proportion of Hindus was highest in the London boroughs of Harrow and Brent. Outside London, the highest proportion of Hindus was in Leicester. The biggest growth since 2001 was seen in Harrow where there was an increase of 5.7 percentage points.

Affiliation with Budhism was predominantly greater within the London areas with the exception of Rushmoor which saw the highest increase since 2001 of 2.9 percentage points to 3.3 per cent.

There is a concentration of Jewish people in the London borough of Barnet and Hertsmere in the East of England, 15.2 per cent and 14.3 per cent of the population respectively. Jewish has increased most since 2001 in Hertsmere by 2.9 percentage points.

The proportion of Sikhs was highest in Slough but the biggest growth was seen in South Bucks where there was a 3.2 percentage point increase.