A Class Act: Social mobility and the creative industries

Giving a webinar presentation (4 Dec 2024) on the report's findings and recommendations, Professor Dave O’Brien co-author, said: 'Of Bafta nominations, 35% are from fee-paying schools... The government needs to rethink widening participation... there needs to be an arts premium in schools; targeted outreach from an early age... and existing legislation on unpaid internships should be tightened.'

Relevant findings from the report include:

Socio-economic background: 

There are low proportions of students from lower socio-economic backgrounds on a range of creative degrees. This mirrors trends seen across higher education generally. For creative subjects, those from the most affluent backgrounds (discussed here as ‘upper middle-class’) constitute very high proportions of students at the most prestigious institutions, and in key creative subjects like Music and Art.

School type:

Oxbridge’s creative subjects have higher proportions of privately educated students (32%) than all other subjects at these two institutions (24%) and the overall average in HE (7%).

Subject differences:

Only five Russell Group institutions offer Art degrees. Almost half of Oxford’s Art students are from upper-middle-class origins and Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh all have over 1/3rd from these origins.

Working in the creative industries:

Degrees are central to the creative workforce. Up to 69% of those working in core creative occupations (such as actors, dancers, artists and writers) have degrees, compared to 26% of the entire workforce.

Elite figures in the creative industries:

Across television, film and music, high-profile figures in the creative industries are much more likely to have attended private school than the UK population (31% compared to 7%).

 

Read the full report here

Watch the webinar: A Class Act: Transforming socio-economic diversity in the creative industries