No revival in sight: Church attendance in Britain remains below pre-pandemic levels

The ‘Quiet Revival’ of Christianity has quietly been laid to rest. It was the title of a report published by the Bible Society a year ago on the basis of research conducted on its behalf by YouGov. It suggested there had been a revival of attendance in Christian churches and chapels, and especially so among younger people. The report attracted considerable journalistic interest. However, shortly before Easter, YouGov stated that the research was flawed because of apparently fraudulent responses provided by some of the respondents to the survey. The survey will now be repeated by YouGov later this year, with tighter controls against fraud put in place.

Shortly before Christmas last year, we posted the evidence from the British Social Attitudes surveys on the recent trend in the level of religious identity and practice. That cast doubt on the claims of the YouGov research, as did further analysis of the issue by the Pew Research Center. Our analysis found that while there had been some reversal of the decline in church attendance that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, the apparent impact of lockdown had far from been fully reversed. This meant that a further notch had apparently been added to the long-term decline in religious observance in Britain. There was also no sign of a revival of Christian observance among younger people. However, we also pointed out that some of the long-term decline in Christian observance has been counterbalanced by increased participation in religions other than Christianity, a development that is particularly evident among younger people.

Here we update our analysis by reporting on the results of the 2025 British Social Attitudes survey conducted last autumn. They for the most part affirm the evidence of our previous surveys – observance in Christian services is still below pre-pandemic levels and is lowest of all among younger people. Meanwhile, the latest results cast further light on the impact of the pandemic on participation in religions other than Christianity. At the same time, we also evaluate a new claim made by the Bible Society that younger people who identify as Christian are more likely than older people to be practising their religion.

Table 1 shows for 2017-2025 the proportion of those who identify with a religion (who collectively still amount to around half the public (49%)) who say they usually attend a religious service other than a baptism, wedding or a funeral at least once a week. The latest figures for Anglicans, Catholics, and those who identify with any other Christian denomination are much the same as we have reported for previous years since the pandemic. Overall, one in eight Christians (13%) currently say they attend a service at least once a week, the same as in 2024. The figure is only slightly higher than the equivalent figure of 12% during the midst of the pandemic in 2021 and is well down on the 20% who did so in 2018. It means that, as in 2024, just 5% of all adults attend a Christian service on a weekly basis, compared with 8% in 2018. The figures for the proportion attending at least once a month tell much the same story (see also Table 3 below). 

^{Source: British Social Attitudes. Base: Those who identify with a religion. See the appendix for details of the sample sizes on which these figures are based.}

Meanwhile, Table 2 affirms our previous finding that there is no evidence of a Christian revival among younger people. In our latest survey just 4% of those aged under 35 say they attend a Christian service at least once a week, little different from the figures shown for previous years in the table. That said, this is the age group among whom the decline in attendance at a Christian service has fallen least (albeit from an already low level) since the years immediately before the pandemic. In contrast, the level of reported weekly attendance among those aged 70 and over is, at 9%, just half of that recorded in 2017. If some Christian congregations are looking a little younger these days, it would appear that it is more likely to reflect a loss of older congregants than any marked success in persuading more younger people to walk through the church door.

^{Source: British Social Attitudes. Base: All adults. See the appendix for details of the sample sizes on which these figures are based.}

Following the decision to withdraw the YouGov survey that provided the basis for the original ‘Quiet Revival’ report, the Bible Society has produced a new publication that uses a variety of other evidence to support the claim that ‘the core themes and messages’ of the original report ‘are substantially true’. One of those pieces of evidence is an analysis of a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2024. It is reported as showing that young people who identify as Christian are more likely to practise their religion by praying and by attending services on a regular basis. In particular, the analysis indicates that 50% of those aged 18-34 attend a service at least once a month, compared with 34% of those aged 35-54 and the same proportion of those aged 55 and over.

Table 3, which shows the proportion of those who identify with a Christian denomination who attend a religious service at least monthly broken down by age group, provides some support for this claim. In all but one of the last nine years (and the exception was a lockdown year), those Christians aged under 35 have been more likely than those aged 55 and over to say they attend a service at least once a month. However, the average difference between the two age groups was just six points – much lower than the 16-point difference identified in the Pew survey. Moreover, reported attendance has typically been somewhat higher among those aged 35-54 than in the oldest age group too. It is the relatively low level of attendance among older Christians that is most distinctive, not the relatively high attendance among younger people.

^{Source: British Social Attitudes. Base: Those who identify with a Christian denomination. See the appendix for details of the sample sizes on which these figures are based.}

Above all, however, there seems to be nothing new about young people who identify as Christian being more likely to practise their religion. On average across the three pre-pandemic years, those aged under 35 were seven points more likely than those aged 55 and over to attend a service at least monthly, little different from the equivalent figure of six points since the pandemic. Moreover, at 27%, the average reported level of monthly attendance among younger people is well down on the equivalent figure of 36% in the pre-pandemic years. In short, it is not obvious that there has been a distinctive revival of church attendance among younger Christians in recent years. Meanwhile, of course, the proportion of younger people who identify with a Christian religion is, at 25%, markedly lower than in the two older age groups (33% among those aged 35-54 and 52% among those aged 55 and over).

Still, whatever the difficulty Christian denominations have had in recovering from the pandemic, Table 1 above indicates that the pandemic had an even bigger impact on regular attendance at a mosque, temple or other non-Christian place of worship. During the public health crisis, the proportion of non-Christians who said they attended at least once a week was barely half what it had been in the three years immediately beforehand.

However, our data for 2024 suggested that perhaps the loss was being reversed – at 39%, the reported weekly attendance among non-Christians matched that reported in 2019. But we should bear in mind (see the Appendix) that this is the smallest of the four groups in Table 1 and the estimates are thus more likely to vary as a result of sampling variation. In any event, our latest data cast doubt on whether the apparent reversal of the pandemic decline has actually happened – at 23% the proportion who now say they attend once a week or more is the same as in 2021. Equally, the proportion who say they attend once a month is, at 35%, little different from the figures recorded during the pandemic (36% in 2020 and 37% in 2021). Although, as Table 1 shows, those who identify with a religion other than Christianity remain markedly more observant than Christians, it now looks as though the pandemic may well have had a significant impact on the level of observance in these faith communities too.

COVID-19 has, it seems, had a long-term adverse impact on religious attendance across the whole of the diverse religious landscape that exists in Britain today.

A note on methodology

Respondents to BSA are selected at random from those living in private households in Great Britain, using the postcode address file as a sampling frame. Until 2020, interviews were conducted face-to-face with adults aged 18 plus in respondents’ own homes. Since 2020, respondents have participated online, but with the option of being interviewed by phone. (In 2024 the age range was extended to 16 plus and the coverage extended to Northern Ireland, but the data reported here for that year are for those aged 18 plus living in Great Britain.)  In all years, the data have been weighted to reflect the known characteristics of the adult population. The unweighted number of respondents who were asked the initial question on religious identity in each year reported here were: 2017: 3988; 2018: 3879; 2019: 3224; 2020: 3964; 2021: 6250; 2022: 6699; 2023: 5578; 2024: 3878; 2025: 4468. For further technical details see the Technical Details in the 42nd British Social Attitudes Report and in previous reports in the series.

The data reported here are based on respondents’ answers to the following sequence of questions:

Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion? 

In what religion, if any, were you brought up?

If respondent claimed a religious identity or said they were brought up in a religion they were then also asked:

Apart from such special occasions as weddings, funerals and baptisms, how often nowadays do you attend services or meetings connected with your religion?

Appendix