The head of a humanist charity has called for a change in how the UK is run and structured as new figures show that less than half of the population of England and Wales consider themselves as Christian. Andrew Copson, chief executive of Humanists UK, said the 2021 census means "the UK is almost certainly one of the least religious countries on Earth”.
Some 46.2% of the population of England and Wales described themselves as Christian on the day of the 2021 census, down from 59.3% a decade earlier, the ONS said. This is the first time the proportion has dropped below a half.
The percentage of people saying they had no religion jumped from around a quarter in 2011 (25.2%) to over a third in 2021 (37.2%). There were increases in the proportion of people describing themselves as Muslim (up from 4.9% to 6.5%) and as Hindu (from 1.5% to 1.7%).
