And the religious group with the highest level of educational degree in England and Wales is…

All groups climb, but Hindus now lead the list

It is important to note that educational achievement is sensitive to a person’s age. First, it takes time to climb the educational ladder, so for this analysis I focus on those who are at least 25 years old, as people younger than that are much more likely to be still gaining higher-level qualifications. Second, higher education has expanded tremendously since the 1980s, meaning that older people, especially those now retired, may not have had the same opportunities as younger people to achieve these higher-level qualifications when they were younger.

Selecting people who are old enough to have had time to achieve a Level 4 qualification but who are still young enough for such an opportunity to be available to most of them, i.e. those aged 25-64 in 2021, indicates that Jews in England and Wales score very well. 61% of British Jews in that age band recorded a higher-level qualification, second only to Hindus at 63%. Both groups are well ahead of the next group, Buddhists, at 49%.

When examining the results over the last ten years, all groups climbed, with the most substantial growth among Muslims, although they remain the group least likely to have higher qualifications. Over the longer 2001-2021 period, the strongest growth was among Christians.

While the overall picture is important, younger adults have had the most opportunities to attain higher education credentials. When limiting the data to those aged 25-49, we see a similar picture, but in these younger cohorts, it is even more evident that the Hindu group has raced ahead of everyone else, including Jews. An astonishing 71% of Hindus aged 25-49 have achieved higher educational qualifications, compared with 65% of Jews in the same age band. In 2001, Jews were seven percentage points ahead of Hindus. Twenty years later, in 2021, Jews were six percentage points behind.

What this shift in higher-education achievements mean

We should not underestimate the rising levels of Hindus achieving a higher degree. In 2001, it would have been hard to predict how high the Hindu group would climb over the following twenty years, but by 2021 they were top of the list. The fact that, for the first time, one of their adherents is now the British Prime Minister is surely no coincidence but a testament to their hard-earned place in British society.

Cultural attitudes among Jews about the importance of higher education are certainly a fundamental explanation for the strong figures exhibited by Jews historically. And this is an explanation for the educational rise of Hindus too. Other South-East Asian groups, whilst also rising, have not increased nearly as strongly as Hindus, despite similar migratory stories.

But another factor impacting the data on Jews is the rise of the Strictly Orthodox component of the Jewish population. Strictly Orthodox Jews tend to emphasise advanced religious studies, not recognised in the census data, over secular and professional qualifications. We can measure this impact on the overall picture by isolating local authorities whose Jewish populations are predominantly strictly Orthodox (i.e. Castle Point, Gateshead, Hackney, Haringey, and Salford) to reveal not only that Strictly Orthodox Jews are about half as likely as the remaining ‘mainstream’ Jews to have achieved higher level qualifications (35% v 71% in the 25-49 age group), but also that, despite having closed the gap, Hindus at 71% have not quite overtaken mainstream Jews. At least not yet.

* Level 4 qualifications include: degree (BA, BSc), higher degree (MA, PhD, PGCE), NVQ level 4 to 5, HNC, HND, RSA Higher Diploma, BTEC Higher level, professional qualifications (for example, teaching, nursing, accountancy)