Britain’s attitudes to faith in public life – September 2024

Key points

• British Muslims hesitant to share their faith: In the last month, the number of British Muslims saying they have not shared their faith in public has risen by 10%, from 24% to 34%. This would suggest the riots over the summer have had a deleterious impact on the willingness of Muslims to discuss their faith.
• Openness to changing opinions on faith amongst youth: The 18-24 age group continues to exhibit a high willingness to change their minds about faith, with 40% agreeing that they are “open to changing their mind” about faith, whilst only 22% of over 55s say so.
• Talk about faith at work: Again, 18-24s are the most in favour of talking openly about faith in the workplace, and are half as likely as over 65s to agree that people should “not talk about their faith” in the workplace (25% to 50%).
• Declining working class support for a Prime Minister of any faith: Since the end of August, the DE social grade has seen a decline of 10% in agreement for the statement, “someone of any faith should be able to be Prime Minister”.
• The media is not portraying faiths equally: There is widespread agreement that the media has portrayed different religions in an unbalanced way. Only 21% of over 65s agree with the statement, while the DE social grade is the least likely to agree at 15%, compared to an average of 22% for other social grade. Likewise, as many as 60% of Muslims say the media has presented some religions more negatively than others in the last four weeks.