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Fact check: How does the Muslim population in Birmingham compare to other UK cities in 2025?
Executive Summary
Birmingham remains one of the UK’s largest Muslim-majority urban concentrations: the 2021 census recorded over 341,000 Muslims in Birmingham, about 29.9% of the city population, making it one of the highest city-level shares in England and Wales [1]. Nationally, Muslims are about 6% of the UK population (roughly 4 million), and are unevenly concentrated in particular cities and wards; Birmingham stands out with multiple wards where Muslim schoolchildren exceed 85%, indicating both demographic size and youthful concentration [2]. Recent reports through 2025 confirm Birmingham’s prominent position but also highlight intra-city diversity and socioeconomic variation [3].
1. Why Birmingham’s Muslim share stands out — the numbers that catch attention
Birmingham’s Muslim population of approximately 341,000 (29.9% in 2021) is markedly larger, in both absolute and percentage terms, than most UK cities outside London and some northern conurbations, making it a national centre of Muslim presence [1]. The city contains wards where more than 85% of schoolchildren are Muslim, a signal of concentrated, intergenerational communities that will shape future demographic shares and service needs; this concentration is not uniform across the city but is sufficiently large to distinguish Birmingham from many other urban areas [2]. These figures derive from census-based reports and 2025 compilations that consistently place Birmingham near the top in city-level Muslim representation [1].
2. Putting Birmingham in the UK context — national share and geographic dispersion
At the national level, Muslims make up about 6% of the UK population (around 4 million people), a figure that frames Birmingham’s local share as substantially above the national average and part of a broader pattern of urban concentration [2]. Reports emphasize that Muslim communities are more geographically dispersed at regional and local levels than many faith groups, meaning high concentrations exist in some cities and wards while many areas have small Muslim populations; Birmingham represents one of those high-concentration urban centres, comparable to parts of London, Bradford, and Leicester in prominence if not always identical percentages [2] [1].
3. What newer 2024–2025 data add — growth, age profile and local change
Mid-2023 to mid-2024 local population change statistics show Birmingham’s total population rose about 1.14%, but these aggregates do not directly measure religious composition shifts; separate 2025 community reports and census-derived summaries indicate a youthful Muslim demographic and wards with concentrated Muslim schoolchildren, pointing to potential growth in local Muslim shares over time even if citywide totals shift modestly [4] [2]. The 2025 Muslim community summaries also stress internal diversity—ethnic, socioeconomic, and generational—which affects how raw population counts translate into political, educational and service demands [3].
4. Diverging sources and what they emphasize — size vs. diversity vs. deprivation
Different reports emphasise different aspects: some highlight absolute size and percentage (Birmingham’s 29.9%), while others stress geographic dispersion or socioeconomic patterns such as the finding that 39% of Muslims live in the most deprived areas of England and Wales, a point that complicates any simple “population ranking” by introducing deprivation and need into the comparison [1] [3]. Freedom-of-information aggregates give large national totals (around 3.9–4 million Muslims) but lack fine-grained city comparisons, so analysts must combine census city data with national summaries to get a full picture [5] [2].
5. Missing pieces and caution about making direct 2025 city-to-city rankings
No single source in the set delivers a definitive 2025 ranked list of Muslim share by city; the strongest city-level datum is Birmingham’s 2021 census figure [1] and subsequent 2025 analyses reiterate its prominence [2]. Evaluating change between 2021 and 2025 requires more recent, city-level religion breakdowns than are widely published; population change reports exist but do not disaggregate by religion, so claims about 2025 exact ranks should be treated as provisional until new census or comparable religious-affiliation surveys are released [4] [3].
6. Bottom line: how to interpret Birmingham’s position going into late 2025
Birmingham stands among the UK’s leading cities by Muslim population both in absolute numbers and as a share of residents, driven by concentrated wards and a youthful profile that implies continued prominence; this is supported by census-derived figures and 2025 community reports [1] [2]. However, national totals and dispersion patterns remind readers that Muslim presence is not limited to a few cities, and socioeconomic data—especially the concentration of Muslims in deprived areas—matters for policy responses and comparative assessments [3] [2].