FOI Reference: FOI/2022/4132
You asked
Please can you let me know (estimates will suffice if there is no actual information of numbers):
(1) how many Muslims there are living in the United Kingdom.
(2) what percentage of the population that number comprises?
(3) How many of the Muslims are Shia Muslims, i.e., Muslims who are from the "twelvers section" or - as they are known - Shia Itha-Asheri Muslims
(4) the date to which the above information is made up.
We said
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request about the Muslim population of the UK.
At ONS, we produce population estimates by religion for England and Wales, not the whole of the UK. Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) info@nisra.gov.uk can be contacted for Northern Ireland data and National Records of Scotland (NRS) foi@nrscotland.gov.uk can be contacted for Scottish data.
In December 2021, we published Population estimates by ethnic group and religion, England and Wales: 2019. This publication builds on previous research and user feedback and was published in response to the need for more timely population estimates by ethnic group and religion. The accompanying dataset includes estimates for the Muslim population of England and Wales as both counts and percentages.
These are experimental statistics of population by 8 religious groups by age and sex at the national and regional level for England and Wales. As such, they are official statistics but will be subject to further testing in terms of quality and ability to meet user needs.
As these estimates are primarily derived from survey data, they are not precise figures, therefore please be aware of the quality information you can find in the accompanying datasets. Further detail of strengths, limitations and quality information is outlined in Section 6 of the article.
Our 'gold standard' source for population estimates by religion remains the 2011 Census.
Data derived from the census are particularly useful when considering more detailed population groups than 8 religious' groups. It is important to note, however, that these estimates will not reflect change since census day in 2011.
These data are freely available at national and subnational level on the Nomis website. The Religion (detailed) [QS210EW] table has a detailed breakdown of the population of England and Wales (not the whole of the UK) as at census day, 27 March 2011, by 59 religious groupings (or classifications).
Unfortunately, your request for information on the population of Shia Muslims is not held. Whilst Muslim is a tick box response in the religion question on the census questionnaire, we do not ask for more detailed information beyond that response. It is possible that someone may have chosen to tick the 'Any other religion' option and use the write-in response option to record their religion as Shia Muslim. However, it is not possible to distinguish an estimate for the Shia Muslim population from these write-in responses, since we cannot tell how many Shia Muslim respondents would have chosen to simply tick the Musim tick-box response.
Finally, you may also be interested in Census 2021 data which will be released later this year. The Census 2021 first results will be released in early summer 2022 with other data, including population by religion data, and analysis following through the year. Our full release plans can be found here.
When accessing any of our files, please read the 'notes, terms and conditions' contained within them.