Hinduism in the United Kingdom

Hinduism has had a presence in the United Kingdom since the early 19th century, as at the time India was ruled by the British. According to 2011 Census of England and Wales, 817,000 residents (1.5%) identified themselves as Hindus.

Hindus was the fourth largest religious group in the 2011 Census of the United Kingdom, after Christianity (59%), No Religion (25%), and Islam (5%). Among those of South Asian origins, Hindus in the United Kingdom (27%) constituted the second largest group after South Asian Muslims (57%), and exceeded South Asian Sikhs (14%) in the 2011 census of the United Kingdom.

There were 101 Hindu temples in the United Kingdom in 2001, compared to 614 Muslim mosques and 193 Sikh temples in 2001.

The British Hindu population includes those who came directly from the Indian sub-continent, descendants of those Hindus who had originally migrated to other countries but later resettled in the United Kingdom, and those born and raised in the UK. It is not unusual to find third or fourth generation Hindus in the UK.

There have been three main waves of migration of Hindus in the UK, and most of the Hindu migration has occurred after World War II. The first wave was at the time of British India's independence and partition in 1947. Also, in the early 1960s the Conservative Health Minister the Rt Hon Enoch Powell recruited a large number of doctors from the Indian sub-continent. The second wave occurred in the 1970s mainly from East Africa especially due to Expulsion of Asians from Uganda. Later, communities included those from Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Mauritius and Fiji. The last wave of migration began in the 1990s and is a result of the United Kingdom's immigration policy, which made studying and immigration to the UK easier. This wave also included Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka and professionals including doctors and software engineers from India.

In terms of relative numbers of South Asian descendants in England and Wales, Hindu population of 806,000 is the second largest group, after 1,628,000 South Asian Muslims according to the 2011 census. This reflects a growth over the 1991 census, when its Hindu population was 397,000 compared to 703,000 South Asian Muslims and 206,000 South Asian Sikhs in the England and Wales.

According to the 2011 census, nearly half of the 817,000 Hindus living in the UK were residents of the London metropolitan area. About 300,000 British Hindus of all ages were born in the UK.

The Hindu population in the UK is predominantly urban, and has relatively higher representation in the professional and managerial positions. Hindu men are more likely than general population to be entrepreneurs, and both Hindu men and women are more likely than general population to have higher education. According to United Kingdom's Office of National Statistics, of all ethnic minorities in Britain, the British Hindus had the highest rate of economic activity in 2011, and a median net wealth of GB£206,000 in 2006 (compared to median net wealth of GB£223,000 for British Christians). Over a 20-year period, British Hindus also had the third lowest poverty level (after British Christian and British Jews), and the second lowest rates of arrest, trial or imprisonment at 0.5% (after British Jews' 0.3%) among all ethnic groups tracked by UK's Ministry of Justice.

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