English Heritage commissioned research by Newcastle University, Loughborough University and the Council of British Archaeology into the scale of the threat from heritage crime in England. A summary note 'Heritage Crime: The Size of the Problem' and the full research paper are available to download free of charge from this page. Key highlights include:
An estimated 18.7% of all listed buildings were physically effected by crime last year. That is over 70,000 listed buildings.
For almost 30,000 listed buildings the impact was substantial.
The biggest single threat is metal theft and the most threatened type of building is a church. About 3 in 8 churches or other religious buildings were damaged by crime last year
There is also a summary of the findings on this webpage and a document on metal theft from churches