New census data has been released for England and Wales about ethnic group, national identity, language and religion.

Contrary to the national figures of 46.2 per cent and Swindon at 46.6 per cent, just over half of people living in Wiltshire - 50.2 per cent - still identified as Christian.  

Southwest England is the least religiously diverse region, with 3.2 per cent professing a religion other than Christian.

Some 41.3 per cent in Wiltshire and 40.5 per cent in Swindon who answered this optional question ticked the “no religion” box.

Of other religions, Buddhist is the highest both in Wiltshire and Swindon, with 0.5 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively.

Looking more locally, it appears that more people identify as Buddhist on a diagonal from Swindon to Bath, covering areas like Royal Wootton Bassett (0.9 per cent), Sherston and Hullavington (1.1 per cent).

In Swindon, the areas where most people identify as Buddhist are Park North and Park South (2.3 per cent).

The centre of Swindon appears as a very religiously-diverse area with higher rates than average for most religions.

In terms of main language spoken, Swindon is again above Wiltshire in terms of diversity with Turkish, Portuguese, South Asian languages or Polish main language at rates between 1.52 per cent for Polish to 3.56 per cent for all South Asian languages combined, including Panjabi or Tamil.

The language with the least representation in Wiltshire is Gujari with 0.01 per cent of residents having ticked that box, closely followed by Urdu (0.02 per cent).

Wiltshire has one of the highest rates of English as a main language in the country at 96.53 per cent.

In Trowbridge North 9.8 per cent don’t have English as their main language but said they can speak the language “well” or “very well”, which is the highest rate in Wiltshire.

It is the case for 8.2 per cent of Swindon residents.

National identity puts Swindon on top again for diversity, with more households identifying with non-UK identities only (13.6 per cent) than in Wiltshire (4.8 per cent) or mixed UK/Non-UK identities, 1.5 per cent in Wiltshire compared to 2.2 per cent in Swindon.

The areas with the highest of people identifying as "non-UK" are Trowbridge North, and the Swindon areas of Abbey Park, Rodbourne and Cheney Manor, Gorse Hill, Central East and Walcot West, Walcot East, Park North and Park South, Central South and Eastcott, Kingshill and Okus, Freshbrook South and Toothill and Westlea and Shaw.

A total of 3.0 per cent - 1.7m - individuals in England and Wales identified as “mixed” or “multiple ethnic groups”, which is in line with Swindon, where 2.8 per cent of people ticked that box. In Wiltshire the figure was 1.7 per cent.

The rates were higher in and around Trowbridge, Chippenham, Marlborough, Royal Wootton Basset and Swindon itself, from 2.6 per cent in Trowbridge North and Chippenham North to 3.9 per cent in Swindon’s Kingshill & Okus area.

Overall, the white ethnic groups were 81.0 per cent (45.8m people) in England and Wales. Swindon was 81.4 per cent, but in Wiltshire the rate was 94.3 per cent.

The survey, carried out on March 21 last year, was filled out by more than 24 million households across England and Wales.

The 2022 census, taking place every 10 years, provides an accurate estimate of all the people and households in the country .

More data will be published in stages over the next two years.