Sutton Trust publishes report on inequality within the creative industry

New research released by social mobility charity The Sutton Trust has revealed that the creative industries are disproportionately populated by those from ‘upper-middle-class backgrounds’ and those who were privately educated.

The report, titled A Class Act: Social mobility and the creative industries, is based on Higher Education Statistics Student Records and Graduate Outcome Survey Results for the academic years 2017-18 to 2021-22 (constituting around 1.1 million records), and on employment data from the Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey in 2014-22 (with an average of 85,000 respondents per year).

Sutton Trust CEO Nick Harrison said: ‘It’s a tragedy that young people from working class backgrounds are the least likely to study creative arts degrees, or break into the creative professions. These sectors bear the hallmarks of being elitist – those from upper-middle-class backgrounds, and the privately-educated are significantly over-represented. Britain’s creative sector is admired around the world, but no child should be held back from reaching their full potential, or from pursuing their interests and dream career, due to their socio-economic background. It’s essential that action is taken to ensure access to high quality creative education in schools, and to tackle financial barriers to accessing creative courses and workplace opportunities.’

The report found that 43 per cent of classical musicians have attended an independent school (over six times higher than average), and 58 per cent have attended an arts specialist university or conservatoire. At these specialist institutions the Sutton trust’s research found a high proportion of privately educated students; 60 per cent at the Royal Academy of Music, 56 per cent at the Royal College of Music and 31 per cent at Guildhall.

The Trust’s research found that among those in creative occupations aged 35 and under, around four times as many individuals come from middle class backgrounds as working-class backgrounds. The report found that equal access to higher education is key: while 20 per cent of the UK’s working-class individuals in employment have a degree, three times as many working-class people in creative jobs have one.

In response to the report, the Sutton Trust is calling for the implementation of measures to improve access to the arts, including introducing an ‘arts premium’ so schools can pay for arts opportunities including music lessons, ensuring that the specialist arts institutions that receive state funding are banned from charging for auditions, and adding socio-economic inclusion as a condition of employers receiving arts funding.

Research for the new report was conducted by Dr Dave O’Brien, professor of Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Manchester; Dr Mark Taylor, senior lecturer in Quantitative Methods at the University of Sheffield; and Dr Orian Brook, chancellor's fellow in Social Policy at the University of Edinburgh. The full report can be found here.