Snapshot of modern Britain: Proportion of Britons describing themselves as white falls five percentage points as census reveals two-thirds of Londoners are from an ethnic minority and fewer than HALF the nation say they are Christian for the first time
England and Wales are becoming less white and Christian, new official data reveals today.
The number of people in England and Wales identifying their ethnic group as white has fallen by around 500,000 over a decade, the Office for National Statistics said.
Some 81.7 per cent of residents in England and Wales described themselves as white on the day of the 2021 census, down from 86 per cent a decade earlier,
The second most common ethnic group was ‘Asian, Asian British or Asian Welsh’ at 9.3 per cent, up from 7.5 per cent in 2011.
The ONS also revealed that two-thirds of Londoners now identify as being from an ethnic minority.
And for the first time since the census began almost 200 years ago fewer than half the population said they were Christian. More than a third now say they have no religion at all.
But the ONS also revealed that while the ethnic make-up of England and Wales is changing, more than 90 per cent said they feel British.
Census deputy director Jon Wroth-Smith said: ‘Today’s data highlights the increasingly multi-cultural society we live in.
Advertisement