Further information on the Jewish and Sikh populations

One of the key benefits of census data is the detailed information which cannot be found from other sources.

The 2022 census showed that the number of people in Scotland whose religion was Jewish was 5,847. The number of people whose religion was Sikh was 10,988.

To provide a more complete picture of people with a Jewish or Sikh identity, we can also consider the number of people who stated Jewish or Sikh as an ethnicity but not as a religion:  

• 1,466 people had an ethnic group of Jewish who did not have a religion of Jewish, meaning that the total Jewish population under this broader definition in Scotland was 7,313. 
• 247 people had an ethnic group of Sikh who did not have a religion of Sikh, meaning that the total Sikh population under this broader definition in Scotland was 11,235. 

Jewish and Sikh population by religion, ethnic group and total 

Stakeholder feedback provided to National Records of Scotland (NRS) during the development of questions for the 2022 census identified the importance of including data from both the ethnic group and religion questions to provide more complete information on the Jewish and Sikh populations in Scotland.  

Following the publication of the Ethnic group, national identity, language and religion topic in May 2024, we committed to providing this further information on the Jewish and Sikh populations. 

We have also published detailed data on religion and ethnic group  write-in responses, which includes information on Jewish and Sikh people. The numbers from the write-in responses for religion and ethnic group cannot be added together to give an estimate of these populations, however, as many people with a religion of Jewish or Sikh also had an ethnic group of Jewish of Sikh. The numbers provided in this blog account for this by only counting people who had a religion or ethnic group of Jewish or Sikh once. 

We plan to add variables to the Flexible Table Builder in 2025 that will allow users to work with the more broadly defined Jewish and Sikh populations. This will allow users to look at other census characteristics data for each group; for example age, health and qualifications.