(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The ONS carried out a survey of more than 400,000 people, a quarter of whom said they had no religion at all, The Daily Mail reported.
According to the survey the proportion of people who said they were not religious rose from 20.5 percent in 2010 to 23.2 percent this year.
The study also found the number of Britons describing themselves as Christian has significantly dropped from 71.3 percent last year to 68.5 percent by March 2011. Of these, 65 percent said they do not practice their religion, the report said.
Across the country, the figures would suggest that an estimated 14 million people in United Kingdom, out of a population of more than 60 million, have no religious beliefs at all.
The survey found that adults aged between 25 and 34 were the group most likely to have turned away from faith, with one third stating that they had “no religion at all”, while those aged over 65 were the most devout section of society.
Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said the ONS findings reflected “the long term decline in church attendance”.
This is projected to continue “as the young practically desert the churches and congregations rapidly age”, he said.
Dave Landrum, director of advocacy at the Evangelical Alliance, argued that the true figure for active Christians would be even lower than the numbers reported by the ONS.
“Ticking a box does not make you a Christian and given the state of our society it is doubtful all of those who self-identify as Christians actually are,” he said.
Meanwhile, the study showed that the proportion of the population of Britain who were Muslims increased, from 4.2 percent in 2010 to 4.4 percent this year.
In a separate poll by the Humanist Society of Scotland, 42 percent of the adult population in Scotland said they held 'no religion'.
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