Thanks for the comment Martin.

I think you’re right in that Brits are quite hesitant to touch on such topics.

More often — the topic of religion may come about incidentally rather than specifically trying to dig into someone’s background.

For instance, someone might ask: “What are you doing for Christmas?” (the answer to which might be “I don’t celebrate because I’m Jewish/Hindu/Muslim/etc”), or a concerned acquaintance or colleagues may point out that a dish at a restaurant contains beef or pork (because I am of ethnic appearance which comes with assumptions about religion, etc), and so on.

Incidentally — my experiences come from Australia, where attitudes are a little more cavalier when speaking on matters of race, politics and religion.