What did the 2021 Census of England and Wales report for the percentage of Muslims in each London borough?
Executive summary
The 2021 Census of England and Wales recorded that Muslims made up 15.0% of London’s population (about 1.32 million people) — Islam is the city’s second-largest religion after Christianity (15.0%; 1.32 million) [1][2]. The provided reporting highlights which London boroughs contain the largest Muslim populations (Tower Hamlets, Newham, Brent and other east and north London boroughs), but the sources supplied do not include a single, complete borough-by-borough percentage table for Muslims that can be quoted here [3][2][4].
1. What the 2021 Census reports for London as a whole
The Office for National Statistics’ Census 2021 religion release shows London as the most religiously diverse region and reports Muslims as 15.0% of London’s usual residents, with 1.32 million people identifying as Muslim in the capital [1][2]. Nationally the 2021 Census recorded about 3.87 million Muslims across England and Wales, situating London as the area with both the largest Muslim population and the highest proportion nationally [5][6].
2. Boroughs singled out by the reporting — counts and concentration
Multiple analyses and community groups emphasised that the highest Muslim concentrations and absolute counts are in several east and north London boroughs: the Muslim Council of Britain and other outlets list Tower Hamlets and Newham among the London boroughs with the largest Muslim populations, and press summaries repeatedly name Newham, Tower Hamlets and Brent as boroughs with very high Muslim shares [3][6][4]. The City Intelligence/Greater London analysis notes that east London boroughs — including Tower Hamlets, Newham and Redbridge — show strong concentrations shaped by migration and settlement patterns [2][7].
3. What is not available in the provided reporting (and why that matters)
None of the supplied snippets or briefings includes a definitive, sourced list of the percentage of Muslims for each of London’s 32 boroughs plus the City of London; the ONS national bulletin gives London’s overall 15% and highlights boroughs of interest, and third‑party analyses provide counts for a few localities, but a complete borough-by-borough percentage table is not present in these excerpts [1][2][3]. Because percentages require borough population denominators and the religion breakdown at that granular level, asserting a precise percentage for every borough without the full ONS borough dataset would be reporting beyond what the provided sources support.
4. Where the full borough-by-borough percentages can be found (and how to read them)
The reliable next step is the ONS Census 2021 detailed tables or the London Datastore release that packages ward and borough religion, ethnicity and identity tables; the City Intelligence / London Datastore briefing references borough-level religion breakdowns and is the kind of source that contains per-borough percentage data [2]. To produce an authoritative borough-by-borough list, one must extract “Religion” counts for each local authority from the ONS or the London Datastore and calculate percentages against each borough’s usual resident population as reported in the same census tables [1][2].
5. Context, competing narratives and caveats
Analysts and community groups emphasise both growth and dispersal of Muslim populations since 2011 — the MCB notes the concentration of large Muslim populations in some cities and boroughs and flags socio‑economic patterns such as higher rates of deprivation in parts of the Muslim population — but those interpretive claims are distinct from the raw percentages and rely on combining census counts with other indices [6][3]. Readers should also note the religion question was voluntary (answered by about 94% across England and Wales), which the ONS flags as a methodological caveat when comparing areas or time periods [1].