The Sutton Trust is carrying out a piece of research to look at the education background of elites in Britain in 2025.
This follows our landmark report, Elitist Britain 2019, and other reports focusing on the backgrounds of those elected into parliament in 2024 and elite figures in the creative industries.
Collecting data
Data is collected from desk-based research, using a range of different sources including (but not limited to):
- Who’s who
- Local newspaper reports
When we are unable to find data publicly online, we contact individuals directly, for example via email, phone, LinkedIn or other social media platforms, asking them to provide information on their educational background (school and university).
Type of data held
For our research for Elitist Britain 2025, we simply collect data on the school and university education, gender and age of individuals.
Lawful basis for processing
The Sutton Trust processes data on individuals’ educational backgrounds under the following bases:
Legitimate interests: This is the basis by which we process publicly available data on individuals’ educational backgrounds, and by which we contact individuals directly if educational background information is not publicly available. Conducting this research plays a role in fulfilling the Sutton Trust’s charitable mission of fostering mobility across the UK. By looking at the educational background of various elites across the UK, we gather valuable insights into how access to top roles differs for individuals from different socio-economic backgrounds. This aligns with our goal of promoting social mobility and ensuring that every individual has a chance to thrive irrespective of their socio-economic background.
Consent: Where data has been provided by an individual directly, it is processed by the Sutton Trust on the basis of consent.
Confidentiality – Who we share your data with
Where data is collected by consent, we will not share it with any third party, other than in an agglomerated and anonymised form, e.g. reporting the proportion of all MPs who attended a private school or break downs within each political party.
Retention periods
Data on individuals’ educational backgrounds is stored by the Sutton Trust indefinitely, for historical research purposes, to allow research to be carried out in future examining individuals’ educational backgrounds over time. Where data has been provided by individuals on the basis of their consent, consent can be removed at any time by contacting [email protected], and the data they provided will be deleted.
Data security
We take the security of your data very seriously and ensure appropriate technical and organisational measures are in place to protect it against unauthorised or unlawful processing, and against accidental loss, destruction or damage. Your data will at a minimum always be password protected and the number of staff who can access this will be restricted to those for whom access is strictly necessary for the research project.
To understand your rights, make a complaint, or to reach out to our data protection officer, please see our main privacy notice here.