British private education and top professions

By The Data Team

A SHADOW was cast over this year’s Oscars by objections to the lack of diversity among the main award nominees. Some black actors boycotted the event, though the ceremony itself was presented by Chris Rock, a black comic-actor, who mockingly referred to the “white-people’s choice award”. British talent was—as is often the case—well represented, but Britain as a country has a diversity problem of its own: the disproportionate success of the privately educated.

The benefits of independent schooling are evident in all sections of British society. Private schools teach just 7% of pupils, but top jobs such as the country’s senior civil servants, cabinet ministers and leading journalists are dominated by the privately educated, according to the Sutton Trust, a charity. In some professions the proportion has increased. In the mid-1980s, and even a decade ago, half Britain’s doctors were privately educated; today the figure is 61%. In law the share of judges and barristers from fee-paying schools has also risen in recent years, returning to the levels of three decades ago. Chief executives, however, were more likely to come from a state-educated background in 2015, though the international nature of the job means more foreigners hold top posts now than in the 1980s.

Even in the arts, going private pays. Since the Academy Awards began in 1929, Brits have won 41 times in the three categories of best actor, actress and director. Of these winners 67% were privately educated; most of the rest attended state-funded schools that select their pupils by academic ability. Equally BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) award winners are more likely to be alumni of fee-paying schools. In music meanwhile, most BRIT (the biggest British annual pop awards) winners come from state schools. But privilege seems instrumental in the classical BRITs, which is composed mainly of the private elite.