What are the Muslim population percentages in Birmingham, Bradford, and Blackburn?

Checked on January 25, 2026
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Executive summary

Birmingham’s Muslim share is widely reported at about 29.9% of the city population according to recent local reporting and demographic summaries [1] [2]. Bradford is reported in the provided material at roughly 30.5% Muslim [3]. The sources supplied do not include a clear, attributable Muslim-percentage figure for Blackburn, and therefore no definitive percentage for Blackburn can be stated from the provided reporting [3].

1. Birmingham: a near‑30% Muslim share in recent reporting

Multiple contemporary local and demographic summaries in the provided reporting place Birmingham’s Muslim population at just under 30% of the city, most prominently a 29.9% figure cited by Birmingham Live and repeated in other compilations that summarize 2021 census and local estimates [1] [2]. Wikipedia-based demographic overviews included in the material corroborate that Birmingham’s Muslim proportion is well above national averages and among the highest of England’s large cities, though those pages emphasize context about diversity rather than providing an exact single-year percentage in every snippet [4].

2. Bradford: reported around 30.5% in the supplied material

Within the supplied sources, a fact‑check style piece lists Bradford at approximately 30.53% Muslim, a figure presented alongside Birmingham’s in that compilation [3]. The provided reporting therefore treats Bradford as having a Muslim share similar in scale to Birmingham’s; the source cited frames these percentages as part of a broader debunking/verification effort rather than a raw census release [3].

3. Blackburn: no clear percentage in the supplied reporting

The assembled sources do not contain an attributable Muslim-percentage figure for Blackburn; the fact‑check and city comparisons included list Birmingham and Bradford explicitly but do not provide a cited number for Blackburn in the snippets provided [3]. Because every factual assertion here must rely on the supplied reporting, it is not possible to state a verified percentage for Blackburn from this set of sources alone [3].

4. How to read these numbers and the limits of the supplied reporting

The figures present in the supplied material reflect a mix of local news summaries, secondary compilations, and encyclopedia-style pages that in places draw on 2011, 2016 or 2021 data or estimates [5] [6] [4]. For Birmingham, the 29.9% figure is tied in the material to 2021 census reporting as presented by Birmingham Live and repeated by demographic aggregators [1] [2]. For Bradford, the 30.53% figure appears in a fact‑check compilation in the provided set rather than in an explicit office-of-statistics release within these snippets [3]. Because the sourced snippets mix dates and secondary reporting, readers should treat single percentage points as best‑available reporting snapshots rather than immutable truth, and seek the primary census or local authority datasets for official, time‑stamped figures [4] [1].

5. Alternative viewpoints and possible agendas in sources

The provided material includes both local news (which emphasizes community context and recent census summaries) and fact‑check/aggregator pages (which aim to confirm or refute viral claims) — each has an implicit agenda: local outlets highlight community composition and services [1], while fact‑check pieces emphasize correcting misinformation or exaggerated claims [3]. Demographic encyclopedias and commercial aggregators repeat figures but may blend different reference years [4] [2]. That mix can produce apparent precision (e.g., 29.85% or 30.53%) that obscures methodological differences between a 2011/2016 estimate and the 2021 census snapshot [5] [6] [1].

Conclusion: immediate answers from the supplied reporting

From the material provided: Birmingham ≈ 29.9% Muslim (reported in local/demographic sources) and Bradford ≈ 30.5% Muslim (reported in the fact‑check compilation) [1] [2] [3]. The supplied sources do not provide a verifiable Muslim-percentage figure for Blackburn, so no definitive percentage for Blackburn can be stated based on these documents alone [3].

Want to dive deeper?
What do the 2021 UK census tables report for the Muslim population percentages in Birmingham, Bradford, and Blackburn?
How have media outlets and fact‑checkers differed in reporting Muslim population shares in UK cities since 2011?
What are the local authority estimates and methodological differences for measuring religious affiliation in English towns like Blackburn?