Sheffield census religion: Satanism and Witchcraft revealed on forms - but no Jedi

New census data reveals that there were people across the city who classed themselves in those categories when it came to their religion, although the largest number of people saying they belonged to a religion said they were Christian.

In total, the census returns showed 672 people describing themselves as Pagan, making it the city’s sixth most followed religion, after Chistianity (214,136), Islam (57,044), Hinduism (3,759), Buddism (2,215), and Sikhism (927). It means there are more Pagans in the city than Jews, with 649 identifying with Judaism.

The largest group (240,847) described themselves as having no religion.

The Pagan Federation International describes Paganism as the ancestral religion of the whole of humanity, and says its adherents venerate nature and worship many deities, both goddesses and gods.

There were 117 saying they followed Wicca, and 24 described themselves as Druids.

In terms of other religions, 53 people said they followed Satanism, and 15 put their religion down as Witchcraft.

A total of 12 put themselves down as Scientologists.

The religion question on the census is voluntary; 94 per cent (56.0 million) of usual residents answered the question in 2021, an increase from 92.9 per cent (52.1 million) in 2011.

For the first time in a census of England and Wales, less than half of the population (46.2 per cent, 27.5 million people) described themselves as Christian, a 13.1 percentage point decrease from 59.3 per cent (33.3 million) in 2011; despite this decrease, Christian remained the most common response to the religion question.

No religion was the second most common response, increasing by 12 percentage points to 37.2 per cent (22.2 million) from 25.2 per cent (14.1 million) in 2011.

There were increases in the number of people who described themselves as Muslim (3.9 million, 6.5 per cent in 2021, up from 2.7 million, 4.9 per cent in 2011) and “Hindu” one million, 1.7 per cent in 2021, up from 818,000, 1.5 per cent in 2011).

In previous decades there has been a high-profile campaign to get people to put their religion down as Jedi. This doesn't seem to have happened this time round as Jedi doesn't feature in the 50-plus list of most common religions.