How do concentrations of Muslim residents compare between major UK cities like London, Birmingham, and Manchester?

1. London: vast numbers, uneven geography

Greater London contained about 1,318,755 Muslims in the 2021 census, making Islam the second-largest religion there at roughly 15% of the city’s population, yet that figure masks stark local variation because the highest concentrations are in east London—Tower Hamlets, Newham and Redbridge—where Bangladeshi, Pakistani and other South Asian communities are concentrated ^{[2] [4]}; Tower Hamlets alone is routinely cited among the highest local percentages and borough-level counts such as Tower Hamlets and Newham feature in Muslim Council of Britain rankings ^[3].

2. Birmingham: the single largest local authority total

Multiple compilations of 2021 data put Birmingham at the top of local authority Muslim totals — the Muslim Council of Britain lists Birmingham with roughly 341,811 Muslims, and earlier analyses and Statista snapshots flagged Birmingham as the local authority with the largest estimated Muslim population (341,811 in MCB first-look; ~280k estimate in 2016), indicating Birmingham’s role as a demographic epicentre for Britain’s Muslim population outside aggregated London borough totals ^{[3] [1] [5]}.

3. Manchester: significant but smaller than Birmingham and aggregate London

Manchester appears consistently among the top localities by Muslim population (MCB lists Manchester at about 122,962), making it one of England’s largest single-city Muslim populations but notably lower than Birmingham’s local authority total and far below the aggregate Muslim count for Greater London; Manchester’s community is part of a broader northern cluster that includes towns such as Oldham, Rochdale and Bolton ^{[3] [6]}.

4. Composition and local identity shape concentration

Ethnic and migration histories shape where Muslims live: British Bangladeshis are concentrated in east London boroughs and pockets in Luton, Birmingham and Oldham, while Pakistani-origin populations are prominent in Birmingham, parts of Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire — these settlement patterns mean that “concentration” is both a matter of raw numbers (Birmingham’s local authority total, London’s aggregate) and of high local percentages in specific boroughs or towns (Tower Hamlets, parts of northern mill towns) ^{[4] [6] [2]}.

5. Growth trends and policy lens

Census-based analyses show notable growth in Muslim populations over the last decade — the Muslim Council of Britain and related summaries highlight large increases in Birmingham (+93,400), Bradford (+53,800) and Manchester (+43,700) since the prior census — a dynamic that both explains rising absolute figures and raises policy questions about services, housing and inclusion in those cities ^{[7] [5]}. The Muslim Council of Britain’s materials interpret these shifts through advocacy priorities (service provision, dispersion trends), so their presentation carries an organizational vantage aimed at representing British Muslim interests ^{[3] [5]}.

6. Caveats, data scope and open questions

Available public summaries and encyclopedia pages provide consistent signals on relative scale and local hotspots but differ in vintage and granularity — some figures are borough-level 2021 counts (MCB), others are earlier estimates (2016 Statista) or descriptive summaries (Wikipedia), and comparisons depend on whether one measures aggregate city-region totals, single local-authority totals, or percentage share of local populations; these sources do not resolve detailed intra-city neighborhood shifts since 2021 nor fully reconcile methodological differences across compendia ^{[2] [1] [6]}.