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Ministers: Social Class

Answer

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

Please see the letter attached from the Permanent Secretary for the Office for National Statistics.

Baroness Finn

House of Lords

London

SW1A 0PW

1 July 2026

Dear Lady Finn,

As Permanent Secretary of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 23 June (HL740)[1], what occupational socio-economic classification the Office for National Statistics and the Social Mobility Commission applies to (1) Ministers of the Crown, and (2) the Prime Minister (HL1331).

The ONS classifies Ministers of the Crown and the Prime Minister to the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) 2020 code 1112, which corresponds to ‘Elected officers and representatives’. Under the simplified National Statistics Socio-economic classification (NS-SEC) framework, this occupation is classified as analytic class 1: Higher managerial, administrative, and professional occupations.

There are 8 analytic classes in the NS-SEC used by the ONS. The Social Mobility Commission group these into 5 categories, as per Table 1 in the supporting Annex below.

Yours sincerely,

Darren Tierney

1. https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2026-06-08/hl740

Annex

Table 1: NS-SEC analytic classes and Social Mobility Commission groups

NS-SEC analytic classes	Social Mobility Commission categories
1. Higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations	Higher professional and managerial
2. Lower managerial, administrative and professional occupations	Lower professional and managerial
3. Intermediate occupations	Intermediate
4. Small employers and own account workers
5. Lower supervisory and technical occupations	Higher working class
6. Semi-routine occupations
7. Routine occupations	Lower working class
8. Never worked, unemployed, and not elsewhere classified

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

HL1331

Session

2026-27

Related items

Summer Internship Programme
Tuesday, 23 June 2026
Written questions
House of Lords

Subjects

Ministers Social class

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk