Report Overview
A report looking at the school and university backgrounds of the leaders of UK Higher Education. This is the latest in a series of surveys undertaken by the Sutton Trust documenting the educational backgrounds of leading people in a number of different professions, particularly those that are prominent in public life. The surveys – covering leading lawyers, politicians, journalists, medics and businessmen – have revealed the extent of the dominance of those educated in independent schools among the country’s elite
Key Findings
School backgrounds
- Well over half (58%) of the country’s vice chancellors were educated in state grammar schools, more than twice the proportion of leaders in other prestigious professions.
- Just over a fifth (20.5%) of vice chancellors were educated in independent schools, at most half the proportion of independently educated leaders in other professions.
- The proportion of vice chancellors educated in state schools increased by eight percentage points during the last decade, from 58.5% to 66.5%.
University backgrounds
- Nine out of ten university heads were awarded their first degrees in old universities, established before 1992.
- Just under one in four vice chancellors graduated from Oxbridge, around half the proportion of Oxbridge educated leaders in other professions.
University groupings
- Seven in ten new university leaders were educated in grammar schools, compared with five in ten grammar educated vice chancellors of old universities.
- 12% of vice chancellors of new universities were awarded their first degrees in new universities (when former polytechnics).
- 96% of vice chancellors of old universities were awarded their first degrees in old universities.
- One in five new university leaders went to Oxbridge, compared with one in three vice
chancellors of old universities.
Other findings
- The proportion of vice chancellors educated in schools outside the UK halved during the last decade, decreasing from 16.5% to 8.6%.
- The proportion of female vice chancellors increased during the last decade, increasing from 5% to 13%, mainly driven by a rise in female leaders of new universities.