The privately educated are “maintaining a vice-like grip” on the top jobs in Britain, a charity has said, and is calling for employers to be required to report on the economic backgrounds of their workforce.
The Sutton Trust has found the most influential people in the UK remain five times more likely to have gone to a private school than the general population in its report Elitist Britain, similar to what the social mobility charity found in 2019.
Of the FTSE 100 chief executives who were educated in the UK, only a third (34%) attended a state comprehensive school, which the Sutton Trust said has remained unchanged since 2019. In comparison, 37% of these chief executives attended private schools, and the rest went to grammar schools.
Sutton Trust chief executive 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.”
In the general UK population, around 7% attend private schools.
The Sutton Trust also said more than two thirds of FTSE 100 chairs were privately educated in 2025, in a 15 percentage point increase from 2019. Nearly half (45%) of chairs attended Oxbridge, and 41% went to both private school and Oxbridge.
Around a third of charity chief executives (34%) went to a private school, 62% of senior judges, 52% of the House of Lords, 50% of newspaper columnists, 45% of podcasters, 47% of political commentators, and 47% of permanent secretaries, the charity said. Among permanent secretaries, 66% are Oxbridge educated, up 10 percentage points since 2019.
This year, the Sutton Trust looked at the educational background of social media influencers and content creators for the first time, and found among this group, 18% had attended private school, and 68% went to a state comprehensive.
A poll by YouGov for the Sutton Trust of 1,492 business senior decision makers also found just 9% of employers said they ask whether employees were eligible for free school meals, and only 15% ask about the profession or class background of employees’ parents, similar levels to 2019.
The polling found there has been a slight increase in the proportion of companies saying they were using contextual recruitment, which considers applicants’ credentials in the context of their background. Up 2% on 2019, 17% of firms said they were using contextual recruitment practices.
The Sutton Trust is calling for the Government to require employers with more than 250 staff to report on the socio-economic background of their workforce, and encourage reporting of class pay gaps. The charity also said employers should look at educational achievements in the context of disadvantage.
Carl Cullinane, director of research and policy at the Sutton Trust, said: “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 10 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.”
