Welcome to BRIN

What is BRIN?

Chart of the week

British Religion in Numbers is an online religious data resource.

Numbers aren't just for statisticians. People want to visualise and understand data for work, for study, for general interest, or to settle a debate. Many debates over religion rest on questions of how large? how many? how typical?

Religious data sources tend to be difficult to find, or need a good deal of interpretation. For example, is Britain 72% Christian, as the 2001 Census reported, or 50% Christian, as found by the 2008 British Social Attitudes survey?

We want to draw religious data sources together, explain how data can be used, and present some examples intuitively to a wide audience.

BRIN is based at the University of Manchester and supported by the Religion and Society research programme.

Source: British Election Study 2009/10 – Campaign Internet Panel Survey. Data compiled by Ben Clements. For more details click here.

British religious statistics - a historically rich and varied resource

In some countries, governments have historically collected statistics on the religion of its citizens. In Britian, this did not happen officially until 2001.

However, there are many rich resources for us to look at. The earliest religious census was conducted as early as 1603. In 1851, a major religious census was carried out as part of the official Census.

From the 1930s, opinion polling firms began including questions about religion - often on press commission. Stories about religion - whether Prince Charles should marry in church, whether people knew the Easter story, attitudes to religious minorities, and what people thought about Sunday trading - have always been of interest to the public.

From the 1970s, large-scale surveys such as the British Social Attitudes Survey and the British Household Panel Survey included questions on religious practice and belief. The 2001 Census included a question on religious identification for the first time, for England, Scotland and Wales.

From such sources, researchers have begun to learn more about changing patterns of religious identification, belief and practice.

Browse the BRIN database to discover more about these sources, what is available to researchers, and what other researchers have published already drawing on these sources. You can also find a detailed history of religious statistics here.