Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life
  • December 2, 2025

Report – The Changing Landscape of Faith in Britain: Rebirth, Renewal and Reimagining

Drawing on a unique survey of 2,774 adults who self-identified as having experienced a change in their religious belief, this report presents the most detailed picture to date of how, why, and in what direction Britons are moving between faiths, spiritualities, and non-belief

Each pathway reflects a different model of how Britons seek meaning, identity, and stability in an age of rapid cultural change. Taken together, the findings reveal that Britain is not secularising in a straightforward way. Instead, the country is undergoing a re-composition of belief, a shift away from inherited institutional structures towards personalised, practice-based, and wellbeingoriented forms of faith. Religion in contemporary Britain functions less as a set of communal obligations and more as an existential toolkit, an array of resources for healing, clarity, purpose, and identity. Far from fading, faith is being remade according to one’s own needs.

Below are the key findings from the report.

Download the report

Islam’s growth is outward-facing; Christianity’s is inward.

  • 73% of new Christians were already Christian (deepening faith or changing denomination), while Islam (59%), Dharmic traditions (55%), and spirituality (62%) drew converts from other or no faiths.

Secularisation is the main destination.

  • The largest single shift is away from organised religion: 39% of participants became atheist.
  • Christianity recorded the heaviest outflow, with 44% of all respondents leaving the faith, usually into no faith rather than another religion.

Dharmic faiths form a quiet growth lane compared to other faiths.

  • 3% adopted Hinduism, Buddhism, or Sikhism with three in four of these becoming Buddhist.
  • Mental health was the top reason cited for conversion (35%), the highest across all traditions.

Spiritual-but-not-religious identities are on the rise.

  • Nearly one in ten respondents became spiritual, split between a number of selfidentified beliefs, including spiritual (51%), Pagan (40%), and Wiccan (9%)
  • The most cited reason for leaving a faith for spiritualism was disillusionment with doctrine (41%) and value clashes (38%).

Motivations and outcomes differ sharply by tradition.

  • Bereavement (31%) and mental health (23%) drive most Christian conversions; global conflict (20%) and mental health (18%) were the most often cited life events considered to have marked a respondent’s faith change journey into Islam (47% selected “none”); For those adopting Dharmic traditions these were mental health (35%) and conflict (16%); while spiritual converts move away from their faith of origin due to doctrinal conflict (41%).
  • Muslim converts are around two-and-a-half times more likely than Christian converts to cite rituals as playing a role in their faith change (27% vs. 11%), highlighting the appeal of structured, embodied practices. Christian converts, by contrast, emphasise a personal connection with God (45% vs. 33% among Muslim converts), making this Christianity’s most distinctive draw, alongside community being the highest cited relative to all other faiths (36%).
  • Across the majority of faiths, conversion is linked to greater purpose and wellbeing, with spiritual paths producing the strongest gains in emotional health (58%) and outlook (55%). However, those leaving Islam were significantly more likely to report improved emotional health (43%) than those becoming Muslim (29%).

About the author

Charlotte Littlewood

Dr Littlewood obtained her PhD in Arab and Islamic studies from the University of Exeter, where her research focused on the persecution of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in the UK. She has consulted for Muslims Against Antisemitism, an organisation that promotes community cohesion in the UK, and founded a community interest company which sought to counter extremism and promote equality and women’s rights in the West Bank. Prior to this, Charlotte worked as a Prevent practitioner on behalf of the government and a Counter-Extremism Coordinator for a borough in East London.