According to projections by the US-based Pew Research Centre, the proportion of the British population identifying themselves as Christian will reduce by almost a third by 2050 to stand at just 45.4 per cent, compared with almost two thirds in 2010.
The number of Muslims in Britain is predicted to more than double to 11.3 per cent, or one in nine of the total population during that time.
But the reports predicts that biggest change in the religious make-up of Britain in the next three and a half decades will be a major expansion in the number of non-religious people. They would account for just under 39 per cent, challenging Christians as the biggest faith community in the UK.
The predictions mirror analysis from the most recent UK census which saw the number of children growing up as Muslims in the UK almost double in a decade while the number of people describing themselves as non-religious also jumped dramatically.
If the projections, which are based on official population figures, birth rates and immigration estimates from around the world, are borne out, it could amount to the most significant religious realignment in Britain since the arrival of Christianity.
It would mean that by 2050 Britain would have the third largest Muslim community, as a share of the population, in Europe, overtaking France, Germany, Belgium and a handful of other countries.
Significantly it would also have the sixth largest non-religious population, proportionally, in the world – still behind officially atheist countries such as North Korea but leapfrogging Vietnam among others.
But, despite the growth of secularism in western countries, the influence of religion across the world is on course to grow by 2050.
At a time of rapid global population increases, the number of “unaffiliated” people worldwide is projected to edge only slightly higher from 1.1 billion to 1.2 billion by 2050.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph Prof Linda Woodhead, an expert in the sociology of religion based at Lancaster University, said: “I think the interesting thing is to compare Britain with comparator countries, other northern European countries with similar national churches. The same rate of de-Christianisation is not projected for Norway, Denmark, Sweden for example. So the national Church of England and Church of Scotland, seem to have been particularly effective in generating ‘no religion’.”
