“Education should not be about wealth,” boomed Tony Blair in 1996. Two decades later, it still is. Private schools teach 7% of Britain’s pupils, but account for half the country’s senior civil servants, cabinet ministers and leading journalists. Seven in ten generals and judges went to independent schools, according to the Sutton Trust, a charity. In some jobs the proportion has even increased. A decade ago, half Britain’s senior doctors were privately educated; today the figure is 61%. The share has risen in the law, too. Even pop stars are more likely than average to have a posh education. And what of the fat cats leading FTSE firms and the plutocrats in Parliament? They, it turns out, are among the least privileged of the lot: only one in three went private.
Britain | Schools and careers
Posh professions
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "Posh professions"
More from Britain
Why Britain’s membership of the ECHR has become a political issue
And why leaving would be a mistake
The ECtHR’s Swiss climate ruling: overreach or appropriate?
A ruling on behalf of pensioners does not mean the court has gone rogue
Why are so many bodies in Britain found in a decomposed state?
To understand Britons’ social isolation, consider their corpses