Update Wednesday: links to articles by Madeleine Davies and Ian Paul added.
The Church of England has released its attendance statistics for 2024.
There is also an accompanying press release which is copied below.
Press release
Attendance at Church of England churches rises for the fourth year in a row
27/10/2025
Attendance at Church of England churches grew for the fourth year in a row last year, statistics have confirmed.
The overall number of regular worshippers across the Church of England’s congregations rose to 1.009 million in 2024, a rise of 0.6 per cent, according to the annual Statistics for Mission findings.
It was the second year in a row in which the Church of England’s “worshipping community” – the combined number of regular members of local congregations – has stood above a million since the Covid-19 pandemic.
All age average attendance on a Sunday also rose 1.5 per cent to 581,000 in 2024, extending rises over recent years.
And overall attendance across the week edged upwards by 1.6 cent in a year, and stood at just over 702,000 last year, according to the figures.
The increase was driven by a recovery in attendance by adults (over 16), among whom average Sunday attendance was up by 1.8 per cent and weekly attendance rose by 1.8 per cent.
The 2024 figures showed that adult baptisms rose to 8,700 in 2024 compared to 7,800 the previous year. There was also a rise in the number of young people, aged between 11 and 17 years old who were baptised, from 2,100 in 2023 to 2,400 last year. Confirmations also rose by 5.3 per cent from 10,700 to 11,300.However, the figures also showed the overall number of baptisms – which includes infant baptisms – fell, as the post Covid lockdown ‘catch up’ slowed.
While the overall figures show that in-person attendance has not fully reached pre-pandemic levels, the figures suggest it is moving closer to the projected pre-pandemic trend and in some cases has risen above the levels that might have been expected had there been no pandemic.
The Bishop of Colchester, Roger Morris, said: “Our church communities have continued to work imaginatively and enthusiastically in order to recover after the pandemic. Although not everywhere, nor to the same degree in each place, we are seeing more and more people engaging with their local church, attending enquirers’ courses, seeking baptism and confirmation and playing an active role in the church community.
“This report outlines some hugely positive signs of growth, particularly in the churches’ outreach to children and young people, a key priority for the Church of England.
“I am hearing stories every week of people in North Essex who have found peace, meaning and purpose through their involvement with the church and in their deepening faith in God.”
Adult and teenage baptisms rise by more than 1,000
The number of teenage and adult baptisms in the Church of England rose by more than 1,000 last year, the highest since the age categories were first recorded six years ago.
Adult baptisms – 18+ – rose to 8,700 in 2024 compared to 7,800 the previous year and there was also a rise in the number of young people, aged between 11 and 17 years old who were baptised, from 2,100 in 2023 to 2,400 last year.
Confirmations also rose by 5.3 per cent from 10,700 to 11,300 with some churches reporting the biggest baptism and confirmation services they have held in recent memory.
In Runcorn, St Michael and All Angels church has seen growth in attendance resulting in 17 baptisms and confirmations at one service. This was the biggest baptism service the church had ever held, and the most confirmations for 20 years.
Hodge Hill Church in Birmingham welcomed a record-high 19 candidates to confirmation in October, having baptised eight members of its community church on the Firs and Bromford estate in the sea at Holy Island, Northumbria in September.
The Bishop of Aston, Esther Prior, said: “It’s been a joy to see the remarkable ways God is at work among adults coming to faith across our churches.
“In the last couple of weeks I have confirmed over 30 new believers, including 10 from Hodge Hill.
“It’s deeply moving to witness lives transformed by the hope of the gospel, signs that the Church is alive and growing.”
As ever, comments, suggestions for further work, or typo alerts would be very welcome.
Huge thanks from me on behalf of all users of the information to everyone who filled in the forms.
Excellent as always Ken. But could you also publish standard deviations when reporting means?
Ken will confirm, but as far as I can see his statistics are all based on an enumeration of the entire relevant population. So there is no modelling or random sampling. Hence no standard deviation. If he reports a figure, that is the actual figure obtained from the returns. It isn’t an estimate of anything else.
Thanks Sanjee, and Bernard for replying for me (and for your encouraging words elsewhere on this thread)! There is some estimation involved, because I don’t receive information from every church (response rate for 2024 was about 90%). I’m certain my estimates are imperfect, for a whole range of reasons, and I’m not sure there’s a sensible way of trying to quantify that. I could witter on about this at length. But where I report the mean number of baptisms per church, for instance, that comes from the full church-level dataset, and of course I could calculate and report the standard… Read more »
Congratulations to Ken Eames and colleagues for a clear report which gives the “warts and all” presentation of the data. Readers should look first at the numbers on page 6 and the graphs (especially on page 14). A very short summary of the report is this: “On nearly every measure, the figures are now back in line with the long term trend of general decline and ageing established before the COVID pandemic.” This isn’t even mentioned in the press release. So, as ever, spin doctors win out over the published facts. I think Ken should particularly be commended for the… Read more »
This looks encouraging.
I really don’t think it is…
Hope and optimism are good things of course but I’d urge those who tend to agree with Janet rather than Ian to look at the report itself, not at the press release. Robin’s point is related to the participation of children (though not totally of course). Table 8 gives data which allows you to compare the participation of children with that of adults. Between 2010 and 2024, adult average weekly attendance dropped by about 30%. The corresponding drop for children was 55%.For average Sunday attendance the drop is 32% for adults, 43% for children. For usual Sunday attendance, 25% for… Read more »
I knew that somebody on TA would find reason not to be encouraged!
The detailed Diocesan tables are available here: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2025-10/statisticsformission2024_tables.xlsx Interesting to see that 40% of the growth in adult attendance comes from London Diocese alone. Otherwise the growth is quite well spread across the country, with only 10 Dioceses showing a decline (with clusters in the SW and NW). The strongest post-covid growth (2021-24) has been in big cities – London, Birmingham, Coventry, Southwark, Sheffield and Bristol are 6 of the 7 dioceses with a 20%+growth in adult attendance (St Eds and Ipswich is the other). Most of those with a lower recovery are rural, though Manchester and Derby have the… Read more »
Thank you David for your interest and for your additional analysis. I’m very glad that the published spreadsheets are saving you a bit of time. Was it at your suggestion we started publishing them, 9 years or so ago? It was definitely as a result of some “user feedback”, but I can’t remember whose.
The confirmation figures are pretty grim and it would be interesting to know more. How are confirmations at public schools and Oxbridge colleges counted in the statistics – is Eton for example included in the Oxford or Lincoln figures – and how many confirmations are in parishes under the care of PEVs. The numbers are now so low that this sort of granular detail becomes more significant.
Am I right in thinking some evangelical parishes ( and others ) have just simply given up on confirmation, not really knowing what it’s about? The pattern of the 50s/ early 60s where confirmation at 12/ 13 and admission to communion were something of a folk rite collapsed. Where youngsters are admitted to communion early probably means many never get confirmed nor perhaps those baptised as adults. Clearly the PEV’s take confirmation seriously and encourage their clergy to present candidates.
In the Church in Wales confirmation was removed some years as a requirement for admission to communion. Baptised weaned infants can receive in one kind which frankly does away with the requirement to reflect and prepare before receiving communion. It’s treated like a snack.
If only those who can reflect and prepare can receive, then you are going to exclude a number of adults.
I think that’s right – my experience of evangelical parishes is that they often admit people to holy communion pretty freely. I can’t see a problem with that, as long as there is evidence of faith.
It’s not just “evangelicals” who have given up on confirmation. I’d suggest there are two issues. The first is the old chestnut that confirmation is a sacrament in search of a theology, with which I would largely agree. It is decades since the Anglican Communion as a whole recognised that Baptism is full sacramental incorporation into the body of Christ. For most of church history, most Christisans have received communion on the basis of baptism largely because confirmation – in both Anglican and Catholic traditions was something of a rarity. As David Ison makes the point in his splendid little… Read more »
I may be wrong but I suspect that this is in large part due to the changing approach to sacrament I referenced in another post. Many Evangelicals feel more comfortable with re-baptism as an adult rather than confirmation. At face value Baptism is biblical where confirmation is not, and an infant baptism may not count as ‘real’ baptism in many circles. Of course the added benefit is that you don’t need a bishop (who might be apostate) swanning around and preaching dodgy doctrine for a baptism.
Thanks for your comments Robin. The confirmation figures I have come from Bishops’ Offices, and should include all confirmations in the diocese, including those from schools and other “non-parochial” places. The figures should include confirmations by the diocesan bishops, suffragan, assistant, or other bishops. So I do not have figures for individual churches/parishes. That is due to change, though, because General Synod requested that an extra question be added to the 2025 form asking each church to report the number of people they prepared for confirmation. I’ll still need to ask for the totals from Bishops’ Offices, of course, since… Read more »
The number of funerals being taken by Church of England ministers has fallen, while the percentage of those funerals which take place in church is increasing. The most natural hypothesis for this is that those more cloesly affiliated with the church are having the funerals they would have had, whilst more off those on the fringes are having funerals without a christian minister present. Those more marginal funerals would more often have taken place in a crematorium. That would be a hypothesis to be tested and would match our local experience and observation. I know that we are also concerned… Read more »
I think the covid restrictions influenced the trend towards unattended cremations. With numbers permitted at cremations we’re limited to 30 it became common to arrange another memorial event. It was but a short step to doing away with attendance at the funeral altogether.
It is also cheaper. Funerals are expensive and it is not entirely clear what people get for their money.
Statistics are just that. As Mark and Bernard have observed, it’s addressing the ‘So what?’ question that is difficult and challenging. Might any of these be ‘causal,factors’- Demographics; School and ‘assemblies’; Sunday trading; multi-parish benefices; ministry ‘training’ and selection/discernment; name your choice to blame. What is to be done about ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ is, if at all? I have no wish to deprive Ken of a role (although IIRC his ‘team’has been reduced); further and deeper investigation may be warranted, though only IMHO if it is to be acted upon rather than left to gather dust after receiving a good… Read more »