The story of Britain's so-called Quiet Revival has taken an unexpected turn. Bible Society CEO Paul Williams issued a statement on 26 March 2026 confirming that the YouGov survey on which the original Quiet Revival report was based has been found to be unreliable — and that the report has therefore been withdrawn.

YouGov admitted that it 'failed to activate key quality control technologies' when conducting the 2024 survey, undermining the reliability of its results. The polling company's CEO Stephan Shakespeare personally apologised, stating: 'YouGov take full responsibility for the outputs of the original 2024 research, and we apologise for what has happened. We would like to stress that Bible Society has at all times accurately and responsibly reported the data we supplied to them.'

For Bible Society, which had spent fifteen months seeking and receiving assurances from YouGov about the robustness of the methodology, the news was deeply disappointing. But Paul Williams was careful not to let the data failure obscure what he described as a genuinely positive spiritual picture.

'There is in fact a very positive story to tell,' he wrote. 'Over the past year we have seen an unprecedented public conversation about Christianity, with countless stories of a spiritual awakening among Gen Z, alongside greatly increased Bible sales in the UK, growing numbers of adult baptisms and confirmations, and increased attendance at evangelism courses.'

He pointed to independent probability-based surveys — including Ipsos Mori's 2023 Global Religion Survey and Pew Research Center data — which indicate that young adults in the UK are more likely to pray and attend a place of worship than older generations. 'While religious identity overall is shifting from "Christian" to "no religion",' Williams observed, 'Christianity in Britain appears to be moving from a declining nominal faith to a committed and active one.'

Bible Society has now published a new report, The Quiet Revival one year on: what's the story?, which draws together this wider body of evidence. The organisation has also committed to re-running the YouGov survey this year with enhanced quality controls in place.

The episode is a reminder of the importance of methodological rigour in religious research — but also, perhaps, that the most important evidence for what God is doing in Britain is not found in survey data at all, but in the lives of people who are quietly, persistently, and joyfully coming to faith.