UK Bible Translation Market Deep-Dive, 2026

Three translations are doing the heavy lifting in 2026. The CSB — still the youngest mainstream English translation — has the fastest growth, driven by independent and Reformed churches adopting it as a pew Bible. The ESV continues to take share from the NIV in evangelical settings, and the NLT is quietly growing on the back of the journalling Bible trend.

The decliners follow a familiar pattern: legacy school and parish copies of the Good News Bible and KJV being replaced as they wear out, rather than a collapse in demand for those translations specifically.

Even after several years of ESV growth, the NIV is still the default UK Bible by a clear margin. Together the top three translations (NIV, ESV, NLT) account for two-thirds of all UK Bible sales.

The same Bible looks very different in different churches. The chart below splits each translation's UK buyers across three rough buckets: evangelical (independent evangelical, Baptist, Pentecostal, charismatic), Anglican / Catholic, and independent / other. The NRSVue is overwhelmingly an Anglican and Catholic translation; the CSB is the most evangelical-skewed of the major versions.

Average retail price is shaped more by which editions exist than by the translation itself. The NRSVue and ESV skew expensive because they're disproportionately sold in premium reference and study formats; the Good News Bible is cheap because it is overwhelmingly bought as a low-cost school or confirmation copy.

To compare individual translations head-to-head, use our Bible translations compared guide, or jump straight to a pair such as NIV vs ESV.

Figures are built from blended order-line data across Bibles.co.uk and partner channels for calendar year 2026 to date. We exclude wholesale and bulk orders above 25 units to keep the figures representative of individual buying behaviour, and de-duplicate repeat customer orders within a 30-day window. Translation, format and growth figures are recalculated weekly. Indices are relative, not absolute units — we don't share absolute volumes.

This is not an industry-body figure and does not replace publisher-reported sales. It is offered as one independent UK specialist's view of the market, refreshed annually. Full editorial and sourcing notes are on our editorial standards page.

All charts and tables on this page are free to reproduce with attribution to Bibles.co.uk and a link back to this report. For comment, raw extracts or a higher-resolution chart, contact the editorial team via our about page.