Despite increasing corporate efforts to hire from more diverse backgrounds, private school alumni remain dominant
among the most powerful positions in British society, according to a sprawling new report on social mobility in the United Kingdom.
New data from social mobility charity the Sutton Trust show that elite schooling remains the surest route to the top of
British society, a reflection that corporate efforts to improve socioeconomic mobility at companies have only made little headway.
Efforts include expanding apprenticeship programs without degree requirements, switching from filtering candi
dates by national exam results to looking at their performance relative to
their school average, and collecting data on what share of top ranks come from working-class backgrounds.
Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives have aimed to correct historic imbalances that left ethnic-minority and lo
wer-socioeconomic workers underrepresented. Yet among those schooled in the UK, people in the most influential roles, from senior judges and government officials to n
ewspaper columnists and CEOs, are still five times more likely to have attended private school than the average Briton, the Sutton Trust finds.
There are signs that that socio-economic mobility has improved since 2019, when the Sutton Trust last conducted a similar analysis. The share of bosses running th
e UK’s top 100 companies who attended fee-paying private schools declined to 18%, while for entrepreneurs, defined by
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the Sutton Trust as founders of privately owned startups valued above $1 billion, the figure is 27%, the report shows.
Politics has shifted too; last year’s switch from a Conservative to a Labour government last year ushered in a cabinet
— the Prime Minister’s top team — where about 7% went to private school, down from almost 39% seven years ago.
Yet progress isn’t uniform. In some fields, such as FTSE 100 chairs or newspaper columnists, the balance has actually tipped further in the favor of privately-schooled individuals, the review shows.
For the vast majority of Britons, who are state-educated, reaching the top-earning echelons of business, finance
and government remains an uphill climb. Research published in June found that graduates from working class backgr
ounds, though well represented in job applications for professional jobs, are 32% less likely to receive an offer compared to peers from a professional background.
It also found that applicants who studied at private school were more likely to be hired compared to those from state schools. Oxford and Cambridge gr
aduates — disproportionately privately educated — are also more likely to land a role the best-paid or most-influential roles, according to the Sutton Trust’s analysis. To be
sure, student bodies at Oxford and Cambridge have become more diverse. State-school students now make up a majority of those admitted at both universities.
“In light of recent pushback against the diversity agenda, it is vital that class is put at the heart of diversity and inclu
sion,” the report’s authors warn. Many firms operating in the US, such as Accenture Plc and PepsiCo Inc, have pared back or canceled diversity and inclu
sion initiatives after US Donald Trump signed executive orders demanding the end of what he calls “wasteful” and “ill
egal” DEI. This US-led backlash has had reverberations across the Atlantic, with a number of UK companies, such as BT Group Plc, cutting back on some diversity initiatives.