I recently got into a Quora spat with a very rude person who called me as a bigot. He was triggered by the the question itself which is not unusual on the internet and as I am not easily offended, I paid it no mind. However, he did call into question the assumption I had made on Muslim population growth in the UK and from a source that in fairness I had not considered might not be reliable.
I got the information from Statista.com and it dates from 2017. The question was 'The number of Muslims in the UK could rise to 17.2 percent by 2050, a total of around 13 million. What will the UK look like when almost 1 in 5 people in it are Muslims?'
I was hoping to get some good ideas about what the UK might actually be like in 2050, and I did. I also got a lot of backlash. The question also stated 'could' it never stated 'will'. Never mind.
He didn't think that there would be the percentage would be this high, however he did make a mistake in the initial calculation of Muslim population growth in the UK so, I wondered if there were some better forecasts out there. I found this on Channel 4's fact checking site and this from the Pew Research Forum. I also found one line on the projection from Wikipedia but I couldn't find the source. Incidentally, while trying to find some good information I can across this website which digs into news stories to see if they are real and check facts and its called fullfact.org, really interesting site.
So the Channel 4 Fact checking site written by Patrick Worall examines the claim that Britain will have a Muslim majority by 2050. It notes the significant growth of the Muslim population from 2001 to 2011 due to immigration and higher birth rates. However, it argues that the fertility rates among Muslims are declining and converging with non-Muslim rates. Projections indicate that Muslims will constitute about 8.2% of the UK population by 2030, far from a majority. The claim of a Muslim majority by 2050 is therefore highly unlikely. It estimate it will not be above 10%.
My verdict on this: I think this is incorrect. I won't bang on but there are too many assumptions made that we already know are wrong now that we have hindsight. The first one is 'Assuming patterns of net immigration do not change significantly, the Pew Forum thinks that there will be just over 5.5 million British Muslims, representing 8.2 per cent of the UK population, by 2030.'
This report was written in 2011 and we have already seen a dramatic change in migration levels since then with net immigration into the UK of 1.278M in 2022 and 2023 alone.
The Wikipedia note said 13 million Muslims in the UK in 2050, but as I said there was no reference for the source. And the issue with the Pew research is that it looks very well researched but it was undertaken 13 years ago.
So I am going to attempt some calculations myself to determine whether this figure is realistic and what is the likely Muslim population likely to be in 2050. Before I begin, I am well aware that this is going to be quite inaccurate simply because
No-one knows how many people are coming in
No really knows how many Muslims are actually here
The government doesn't record the religion of the incomers that they do know about
The census question to state religious affiliations is voluntary
So, we don't even have a very accurate starting point but it isn't unfair to assume that the numbers of people in the UK and coming to the UK are more likely to be higher than the official stats.
Lets start with what we think we know.
The Muslim population in the UK in 2011 was 2.7M
The Muslim population at the last census in 2021 was 3.9M
Now to what Channel 4, the various other sources predict the Muslim population to be in 2030
2030 Muslim population prediction 5.85M
Lets plot this growth on a chart
Here's the graph showing the projected population growth from 2011 to 2050. The population increases from 2.7 million in 2011 to 3.9 million in 2021 and then to 5.85 million in 2030. The projection continues to 2050, assuming the growth rate from 2021 to 2030 persists and gives us a population estimate of 14.2 million.
So, to get that as percentage of the population we need to know what the population of the UK is going to be in 2050. This isn't easy either, I am going to go with the answer from ChatGpt
Based on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) projections, the UK population is expected to grow over the coming decades. Here are a couple of estimates for the UK population projection in 2050:
According to the 2020-based interim national population projections, the UK population, which was estimated to be 67.1 million in mid-2020, is projected to rise by approximately 2.1 million to 69.2 million by mid-2030 (a 3.2% increase). Extrapolating further, we can estimate that by 2050, the population might continue to grow. However, this projection does not provide an exact figure for 2021.
Another estimate suggests that the UK population could reach around 78 million by 2050, assuming an average annual growth rate of 0.4%.
In the interests of not making this article even longer than it already is lets split the difference as neither of these figures take the 2021 and 2022 migrant net totals into account anyway.
So lets say UK population in 2050 might be 75 million, its a nice round figure.
That would give us a percentage of 18.9 % Muslims in the UK in 2050.
But wait. There are a few more things we need to consider
This assumes that the growth rate in the Muslim community increases at the rate it did between 2011 and 2021.
It doesn't account for any new Muslim migration to the UK
So, first I used ChatGPT to map this out for point one, assuming a rate birth rate of 2.9 in the Muslim community (overall in the UK it is 1.7) and this is sourced form Wikipedia and I think that most sources are saying this is a conservative birth rate figure, so I don't think I am being unfair with the initial premise.
Then I am going to assume that over time, the birth rate in the UK Muslim community reduces to 1.8. This assumes that cultural and economic factors come into play as it has in all other communities because the European Muslims are not as prolific at producing children as Arab and Asian Muslims. However there is actually no evidence to suggest that they will ever get to 1.8 and it seems unlikely that this would occur in a mere 25 years but lets use it nevertheless.
So, Chatgpt 4o couldn't get its circuits around this concept so to do this I asked it to reduce the birthrate from 2021 to 64% to 2050 and the graph for that looks like this:
As you can see that has reduced the population to around 12.1 million Muslims in the UK by 2050. That gives us a figure of around 16% of the total projected population
I am now going to add one more factor and that is further immigration that has not been added to my projections and its composition.
The Home office has some statistics on what they term irregular arrivals into the UK and this made up of the small boats that are arriving onto the South Coast, detections at Ports and airports. According to that report
'In 2023, there were 36,704 irregular arrivals, one-third (33%) fewer than in 2022, and 80% of these arrived on small boats.'
Lets forget 2021 even though it was not likely included in the census that year and say that is 85,000 irregular arrivals (70% male interestingly). The countries that they are coming from are Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Eritrea, Albania, Syria and Iraq. Except Eritrea that has a 50% Muslim population and Syria (87%) these are almost all likely to be Muslim. Lets for arguments say we have 80% Muslims here that would be a total of 68,000.
Moving on to the larger amount of immigration that is coming for mostly work, study, family and asylum totaled net 1.278 million in 2022 and 2023. I have not factored the net amount of Muslim increase here (i.e. Europeans leaving v Muslims arriving) however and I think this will give us an even higher net amount of Muslim arrivals but I need to keep it simpler (we already have so many assumptions already).
In 2023, the top countries from which migrants came to the UK were as follows:
India: The largest group of non-EU nationals, with 253,000 people.
Nigeria: 141,000 people.
China: 89,000 people.
Pakistan: 55,000 people.
Ukraine: 35,000 people, including those under the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme and Ukraine Family Scheme.
Hong Kong: 52,000 British nationals from Hong Kong.
United States: A significant number, though exact figures were not specified.
Romania: Notably high, given its status within the EU.
Italy: Also a significant contributor within the EU context.
France: Part of the EU nationalities contributing to migration.
Source (Office for National Statistics)
Estimated amount of Muslims here: India (14% Muslims), Pakistan (97%), Nigeria (53%). Lets take this a rough it up over the 2 years to 350,000 all told. Add that to the irregular arrivals and we have a 420,000 and round down to 400K for errors.
We now have an additional 400,000 Muslims in the UK not accounted for by the 2021 census. Whether this will continue at this rate and for how long is really anyone's guess. Over the next 5 years of a likely Labour government I would wager that this figure will not decrease by much, I would say optimistically there will be big attempts to reduce it coming up to the 2029 election where this will be the most important concern for the public in the UK by a significant margin. Again, let err on the side of caution and say this will reduce to 50,000 net immigration of Muslims by 2029 linearly, so 2024 we have 200,000, 2025 we have 170,000 etc. On a chart that looks like this, but it still means we have an additional 750,000 by 2029.
Add this to the additional 400,000 we may already have (2023) and lets say by 2030 then we may actually have 1.15M + 5.85M = 7 million Muslims. I am not going to factor in any more Muslims arriving at that rate because I think the figures will look insane.
Now we know we are never going to get a spot on figure here so lets make some 'between one and the other' predictions. To start based on this new information for how many we actually have in 2030 lets make a new projection for 2050.
Projection1
If we factor in the new amount of Muslims to 2030 and then say that this will reduce to 50,000 in that year and continue at 50,000 net increase per year then by 2050 we will be looking at a population of 21 million and on that basis we need to extend the population again to say 85 million. That means 24.7% Muslim population. This is in the graph below.
Projection 2
If we model for no more net positive immigration from Muslims after 2030 then I have reduced the growth rate to give us this graph that shows us that we can expect to have 18 million Muslims and I can only again guess the population at perhaps 77 Million giving us 23.3%.
Conclusion
I would really like to get my hands on some population modelling software because I have really enjoyed this exercise. So many variables here, so many assumptions have to be made, though I think I have been cautious on the figures and fair in my assumptions.
Of course, I could be totally wrong on all counts. It could be bigger of course with a higher birth rate and no let up on immigration and it could be lower with maybe net negative migration and a lower birth rate earlier. Its really just an experiment.
What this exercise does show is that it is very easy to see how adding additional numbers via immigration to even a relatively small population with a a high growth rate can make an enormous difference to the population over time. And what I don't think any of the latest projections have taken into account is the enormous amount of Muslim immigration since the last census in 2021.
My conclusion then is if Muslim immigration is net zero after 2030 the population might be around 23% and if not and it is only reduced to 50,000 additional then we are looking at around perhaps 21 million and 25% of the UK population.
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