Diversity consultancy says ‘class ceilings’ still dictate top jobs
30 September 2013
Class still dominates Britain’s boardrooms, with FTSE 100 senior directors more than six times more likely to be privately educated than the general population.
Mon, 30 Sep 2013Class still dominates Britain’s boardrooms, with FTSE 100 senior directors more than six times more likely to be privately educated than the general population.
This is according to diversity consultancy Equal Approach, whose new report ‘Class Ceilings', available online, shows that 45% of FTSE 100 chief executives and chairs went to private schools, compared with just 7% of the general population.
As the report notes, Oxbridge graduates who made it to the top of UK boardrooms were overwhelmingly educated privately: 63.2% of those who studied at either Oxford or Cambridge first attended a private school.
The oil & gas and media industries were the ones with the highest proportion of top executives coming from private education – but none of the leaders of the biggest banks were privately educated in the UK.
Dawn Milman-Hurst, chief executive officer of Equal Approach, says: “A lot of attention has been paid to the ‘glass ceiling’ and lack of female representation at board level; but we should also consider the ‘class ceiling’, which state-schooled pupils can find hard to break.”
This is according to diversity consultancy Equal Approach, whose new report ‘Class Ceilings', available online, shows that 45% of FTSE 100 chief executives and chairs went to private schools, compared with just 7% of the general population.
As the report notes, Oxbridge graduates who made it to the top of UK boardrooms were overwhelmingly educated privately: 63.2% of those who studied at either Oxford or Cambridge first attended a private school.
The oil & gas and media industries were the ones with the highest proportion of top executives coming from private education – but none of the leaders of the biggest banks were privately educated in the UK.
Dawn Milman-Hurst, chief executive officer of Equal Approach, says: “A lot of attention has been paid to the ‘glass ceiling’ and lack of female representation at board level; but we should also consider the ‘class ceiling’, which state-schooled pupils can find hard to break.”
