Islam is the largest religious minority in Britain, and Muslim communities are woven into the life of nearly every major city. Unlike France, England and Wales do record religion in their census, which gives a clearer, though still voluntary, picture of the community's size. This article, part of our Muslim population data hub, looks at how many Muslims live in the United Kingdom, where they are concentrated, and what the country's mosque landscape looks like.
How many, and where
According to the 2021 Census of England and Wales, Muslims made up around 6.5% of the population, or roughly 3.9 million people, up from about 4.8% a decade earlier. Because the religion question is voluntary and the census is taken separately in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom total is a little higher and the exact figure should be read as an estimate. Muslim communities are heavily urban, concentrated in London and in the cities of the Midlands and the North such as Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester and Leicester. The wider continental picture is set out in our article on Muslims in Europe.
Origins and traditions
British Islam reflects the country's particular history of migration. A large share of Muslims trace their roots to South Asia, especially Pakistan and Bangladesh, with significant communities of Arab, African, Somali and other origins. Yemeni Arabs form one of the oldest Muslim communities in Britain, settled for more than a century in port and industrial cities such as Sheffield, Liverpool and Cardiff. In terms of tradition, research collected by Mehmood Naqshbandi and summarised by the CREST research centre found that around 85% of British Muslims are Sunni and about 15% Shia, with the Sunni majority organised largely around reform movements rooted in South Asia.
The mosque landscape
The same research counted about 1,825 mosques in the UK by 2017, up from 1,640 in 2015, and the number has continued to grow. Most are modest: roughly half have a capacity of under 300, and many began, like Bradford's first mosque in 1959, in an ordinary converted house. Others are among the largest religious buildings in the country: Bradford's Al-Jamia Suffa-Tul-Islam Grand Mosque can hold up to 8,000 worshippers, and Birmingham alone has more than 160 mosques. According to the CREST overview, around 72% of British mosques followed the Deobandi or Barelwi traditions, about 9% were Salafi, and roughly 6% were run by and for Shia communities, with the remainder non-sectarian prayer rooms in universities, hospitals and airports. About 72% provided facilities for women.
More than a place of prayer
British mosques host the five daily prayers and the Friday jumua, but they also run Qur'an classes for children, coordinate weddings and funerals, and increasingly open their doors to visitors through events such as Visit My Mosque day. You can United kingdom in the directory or open the the interactive map to find them near you. For the global backdrop to these communities, see Muslim population worldwide.
From a rented room above a shop to a mosque holding thousands, Britain's places of worship are as varied as the communities that built them. Use MosqueFinder to step beyond the statistics and visit one.