The most powerful and influential people in the UK remain five times more likely to have been privately educated than the general population. Members of this leadership elite are also twice as likely to go to university, over five times more likely to have gone to a Russell Group university, and 21 times more likely to have gone to Oxford or Cambridge than the general population.
Just 7% of the general population attends private schools. However, Elitist Britain, a new report the Sutton Trust has published lays bare the extent to which people from elite education backgrounds dominate the UK across a variety of fields. This includes politics, media, business, sport, and the creative arts. Despite significant social and political change since 2019, the UK has made little progress in ensuring Britain’s leadership class better reflects the broader population.
Elitist Britain: the rich and powerful running roughshod over the UK
Of the FTSE100 CEOs who were educated in the UK, only a third (34%) attended a state comprehensive school. This is a figure unchanged since 2019. Meanwhile, almost two fifths attended private school (37%).
FTSE100 chairs were even more likely to be privately educated than their CEOs, and more likely to be Oxbridge-educated too. Of those educated in the UK, just 1 in 10 went to a state comprehensive, while two thirds (68%) were privately educated. This makes them the most privately educated profession in this report and represents a 15% increase since 2019. Nearly half (45%) of all UK-educated chairs attended Oxbridge, up from 43% in 2019, while 41% went to both private school and Oxbridge.
Rich elite also dominate charities and the public sector
However, the report shows that elitism isn’t just an issue for big businesses. Around a third of charity CEOs attended a private school (34%), over half attended a Russell Group institution (52%), and almost 1 in 5 attended Oxbridge.
And the most senior public servants are also overwhelmingly from elite education backgrounds. 62% of senior judges attended a private school, largely unchanged from 2019 (where it was 65%). This makes it one of the professions with the highest private school attendance. Senior judges are also the profession with the highest proportion of Oxbridge graduates in the report, with three quarters (75%) having studied there. This has increased from 71% in 2019.
Almost half of all permanent secretaries, effectively the CEOs of government departments, attended a private school (47%). Fewer than one third attended a comprehensive school (29%), a very slight increase since 2019. Two thirds of permanent secretaries are Oxbridge educated (66%), up 10% since 2019.
Privately-educated politicians and media pundits: no surprises there
In politics, while the number of privately educated MPs has been reducing at each election, from 33% in 2014 to 24% today, the House of Lords has remained even more elitist, at 52% privately educated, up slightly from 50% in 2014. Among hereditary peers, the figure is 95%, while over half attended Eton alone.
The backgrounds of leading figures in the media also remain highly unrepresentative. The gap is particularly prominent amongst newspaper columnists (50% privately educated), podcasters (45%), political commentators (47%) and BBC executives (38%). The proportions of privately educated BBC executives has increased by 10% since 2019. Meanwhile, privately educated newspaper columnists increased by nearly 7%. At least 20% of the key individuals in these professions are Oxbridge alumni. Nearly half had attended a Russell Group university.
This contrasts starkly with the rise of high-profile social media influencers and content creators. The report examined this for the first time given their rapid growth in importance over the past six years. This category is among the most diverse, with only 18% of influencers and content creators having attended private school, while 68% attended a state comprehensive, and 10% attended a state grammar.
Influencers and content creators are also among the least likely to have attended Russell Group universities (16%) or Oxbridge (4%). Just over half (51%) attended university, which is much lower than other sections of the traditional media examined in this report, and far more reflective of British society as a whole. This is likely because there is no formal established route into developing a social media following, with fewer barriers to entry for those with talent from all backgrounds.
Companies don’t care about ‘diversity’ unless it suits them
New YouGov polling that it conducted for the Sutton Trust has compounded these stark findings The polling revealed very limited progress amongst companies measuring the socio-economic backgrounds of their workforce since 2019. For example, just 9% of employers ask whether employees were eligible for free school meals. On top of this, only 15% ask about the profession or class background of employees’ parents. Just 60% record information on ‘protected characteristics’ like gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.
And there has been only a slight increase in the proportion of companies using contextual recruitment. This considers applicants’ credentials in the context of their background. Only 17% of firms say they are systematically using contextual recruitment practices, up just 2% on 2019.
Director of research and policy at the Sutton Trust Carl Cullinane explained that:
This polling suggests that most employers aren’t building a talent pipeline of young people from less advantaged backgrounds. And while there have been efforts to make business more inclusive, work on social mobility is patchy, and too often, social class is not included in the diversity conversation. Just one in ten companies run specific schemes to support employees in terms of social mobility.
This means they’re potentially limiting their talent pool. Making the most of talent, wherever it comes from, means employers can move beyond a narrow cohort of candidates from the most advantaged backgrounds. This can be a win-win for employers, society, and the economy.
Privately-educated privilege is the pipeline into power
The Sutton Trust is calling on the government to require employers with over 250 staff to report on the socio-economic background of their workforce, and encourage reporting of class pay gaps. Collecting this information allows employers to understand the make-up of their workforce to identify and tackle access and progression gaps.
Employers should also look at education achievements in the context of disadvantage, including attending underperforming schools and less advantaged neighbourhoods, as well as looking beyond a narrow range of universities. This will help to widen the talent pool of applicants, and help build a pipeline of leaders that better reflects the experiences of society more broadly.
CEO of the Sutton Trust Nick Harrison said:
It’s a disgrace that most of the top jobs in Britain are still dominated by those from privileged education backgrounds, representing a small fraction of the wider population. Little progress has been made in opening up positions of power, with those from private schools maintaining a vice-like grip on the most important roles.
In 2025 you can still buy advantage, massively increasing your chance of getting into the most powerful roles in the country. This is grossly unfair, and a waste of talent on a huge scale. If we want a fairer country and a stronger economy, employers and policymakers must take responsibility for levelling the playing field, where privilege is no longer a passport to power.
Featured image via the Canary
