Rob Barward-Symmons

‘It’s younger people seeking some sort of spirituality’: The rise of UK Bible sales Surge in sales correlates with the growth in church attendances in England and Wales, research says For Christian booksellers, the good news about Bibles sales has been few and far between. But in recent retail figures, there was a revelation. Sales of the good book reached a record high in the UK in 2025, increasing by 134% since 2019 – the highest since records began – according to industry research. Last year, the total sales of Bibles in the UK reached £6.3m in 2025, £3.61mup on 2019 sales. Continue reading...

‘It’s younger people seeking some sort of spirituality’: The rise of UK Bible sales

Interestingly in our interim survey (for The Quiet Revival) in early 22 we found approx stability in terms of reported churchgoing compared to 18. A smaller sample and straight off COVID so is difficult to interpret, but further suggests that something has happened particularly in the last few years

Graph showing UK annual Bible sales. The chart is largely steady until around 2022, at which point it begins to increase rapidly. The 2024 figure is more than 2x that of 2020.

A chart from YouGov of their 'Brits' beliefs about God(s)', showing the 18-24 bracket. It shows that belief in God has increased rapidly since August 2022 among this demographic

Obviously fascinating by itself, but also adds evidence to this curious idea that something has shifted significantly specifically since (mid?) 2022. Second chart is from the YouGov belief in God tracker (18-24s)

Bible sales hit record high as Gen Z drive 134% growth in six years Total sales of the Bible reached £6.3million in Britain last year - up 134 per cent in value since £2.7million in 2019, according to analysis of Nielsen BookScan data.

Staggering story this - Bible sales soaring thanks to Gen Z. More evidence that something is definitely happening among young adults www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

Thanks!

Becoming Evangelical by Rob Barward-Symmons | Waterstones Buy Becoming Evangelical by Rob Barward-Symmons from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.

If anyone (or their librarian) is really eager, my upcoming
@bloomsburyacad.bsky.social book 'Becoming Evangelical: Life and Liminalities in Christian Youth Groups' is now available to pre-order! Bizarre but exciting to see it live www.waterstones.com/book/becomin...

Theos let me write about cricket, which was far more fun than suffering through Day 2

My blog for Theos on how two of last week's big releases point towards the shifting seems of youth culture since the start of the century

This is excellent from @robb-s.bsky.social, simultaneously sharing some great insights on religion and youth culture while also educating our Theos colleagues about the brilliance of Dave.

Shot, chaser

Young men more likely to vote Green than Reform. Young men second most progressive group of any demographic. Combined right-wing vote barely bigger than Green vote alone for young men

We've got some really exciting projects lined up that this person would be able to get stuck into, so do apply if you're interested - or share it with someone who would be. But be quick, applications close next week!

YouTube video by The News Agents What's going on with young people and God?

"No one knows why."

A recent YouGov poll says the number of young people who actively have faith has doubled in the last six years... it's called the “Quiet Revival“.

What’s going on with young people and God?
@maitlis.bsky.social investigates.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=izH1...

Apologies for not tagging you there @alexandria-ah.bsky.social but to be fair yesterday you did proudly tell me you didn't have any social media so...

Just saw this thread while searching the hashtag and I had the same feeling this year of not feeling the desire (or need?) to do the live updates. May be because I no longer have a role, but also just feels like evidence that the relationship to social media has transformed over the past year

I should say a massive well done to everyone involved in the conference, particularly @jen-studies-death.bsky.social and Alex who put so much into making it happen. SocRel really is an annual highlight and it just doesn't happen without folk like them working thanklessly throughout the year

A faceless baby in a pram holding an events badge with the label "Baby Quiet Revival"

After another brilliant @bsasocrel.bsky.social conference #SocRel25 and a manic few months I'm today on my first day of three months of shared parental leave. Can't wait. Should hopefully spend less time on social media...

This is outstanding news (though as some know I would advocate for younger). Now schools have the real opportunity to guide young people in how to positively contribute towards democratic society

Dr Jennie Riley’s presentation on public engagement

Dr Renasha Khan’s presentation on reframing research and accessibility

Dr Rob Barward Symmons presentation on engaging with media

Fantastic PGR/ECR workshop this morning exploring public engagement, framing research and accessibility, and engaging with media by the excellent @jen-studies-death.bsky.social @renasha.bsky.social @robb-s.bsky.social

Lots of fantastic tips and insight which I look forward to putting into practice.

Ultimately from a data/sampling/methodological perspective it's their reputation at stake, and they were happy for it to go to print as written.

Worth adding, however, that we wouldn't be allowed to publish inaccurate analysis of the data - YouGov have reviewed everything in the report and have signed it off from a data accuracy perspective. If we bastardised the data they would publish a retraction and distance themselves

As is standard, the methodology and data tables on published data are available on request from YouGov (I don't have the direct link to hand atm), and we are exploring making more available in the future. All the relevant questions and sample sizes/info are also included in the report.

Sorry have to jump but as I say, a fuller FAQ coming soon.

Ultimately we have to acknowledge that, short of a full census (which does not ask about religious practice but that's a longer story) all surveys are going to have their limitations. Even British Social Attitudes! YouGov are, however, *incredibly* good at this form of polling.

[..] Denominational counts are measured VERY differently to a YouGov survey, and depend ultimately on a wide range of volunteers. I should say the data - and not just because of the findings - has been warmly received by senior figures within denoms because it gives deeper insights

- Having said that, the trend differences between ours and the denom counts are both curious and fascinating (though in some cases not as far out as would appear once margin of error is taken into account). The methodological differences between the approaches though are not insignificant [...]

- I would caution heavily against extrapolating specific numbers from percentages, particularly from smaller sample sizes, partly due to the larger margin of error at this scale. We avoid giving denominational, age etc *figures* for this reason

- A social desirability/"Shy Tory" dismissal needs to address convincingly firstly why it wasn't in effect in 2018 and secondly why these respondents look, across the whole breadth of the survey, like committed churchgoers. It's a coherent data story

Appreciate the blog, a Bsky thread probably not the best place to respond in full but we will have an FAQ piece coming out very soon addressing a lot of your queries. A couple of quick bullets though:

The BES data is available for download - www.britishelectionstudy.com/data/ - but all requires additional analysis, so this graph is based on The Economist's analysis of the data.

Fascinating article about the shift towards Christianity across the West, particularly among young adults. And exciting to see the Quiet Revival trends replicated in the British Election Study! Something is shifting, and we - including scholars - need to be paying attention