The past 10 years have seen the proportion of British adults who say they are Anglican fall by 40 per cent in the past decade, according to a new survey of religious affiliation in the UK.
NatCen”s British Social Attitudes survey shows that while the Church of England has been in decline for more than 30 years, that decline appears to have accelerated in the past decade. While the proportion was 40 per cent in 1983, it had dropped to 29 per cent by 2004 and then sharply to 17 per cent by 2014.
The survey says that in real terms this equates to the number of Anglicans in the UK falling from 13 million people in 2004 to about 8.5 million in 2014.
Meanwhile, the survey shows that the number of people who say they have no religion rose from 31 per cent in 1983 to 43 per cent a decade ago and almost half the population – 49 per cent – in 2014.
Elsewhere it shows that other Christian denominations have remained fairly stable over the past 30 years with Roman Catholics making up eight per cent of the population and ‘other’ Christian denominations – including Methodists, Presbyterians and those without a denomination – making up 17 per cent. Both figures are similar to those of 1983.
Among other religions, Islam has been the fastest growing, moving up from 0.5 per cent of the population in 1983 to around five per cent in 2014. Overall, the proportion of people who follow religions other than Christianity has risen from two per cent in 1983 to eight per cent in 2014.
Naomi Jones, head of social attitudes at NatCen Social Research, said that while the “main explanation” for the increase in British people saying they are not religious is “generational displacement” – with each generation less religious than the next meaning that as older generations die the overall population becomes less religious, this didn’t completely explain the continuing decline in the Anglican Church.
“One explanation for this might be that the numbers of Catholic and non-Christian people in Britain may have been supplemented by migrants with strong religious beliefs,” she said. “While another explanation could be that in the past religion played a more prominent role in people”s identity. We know from recent NatCen research that people are less likely than in previous years to see being Christian as an important component of being British. Therefore, fewer British people may feel that the Church of England is an important part of their identity nowadays.”
