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‘Little progress’ made opening up top jobs to state-educated people – charity

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‘Little progress’ made opening up top jobs to state-educated people – charity



The privately educated are “maintaining a vice-like grip” on the top jobs in Britain, a charity has said, and is calling for employers to be required to report on the economic backgrounds of their workforce.

The Sutton Trust has found the most influential people in the UK remain five times more likely to have gone to a private school than the general population in its report Elitist Britain, similar to what the social mobility charity found in 2019.

Of the FTSE 100 chief executives who were educated in the UK, only a third (34%) attended a state comprehensive school, which the Sutton Trust said has remained unchanged since 2019. In comparison, 37% of these chief executives attended private schools, and the rest went to grammar schools.

Sutton Trust chief executive Nick Harrison said: “It’s a disgrace that most of the top jobs in Britain are still dominated by those from privileged education backgrounds, representing a small fraction of the wider population. Little progress has been made in opening up positions of power, with those from private schools maintaining a vice-like grip on the most important roles.

“In 2025 you can still buy advantage, massively increasing your chance of getting into the most powerful roles in the country.

“This is grossly unfair, and a waste of talent on a huge scale. If we want a fairer country and a stronger economy, employers and policymakers must take responsibility for levelling the playing field, where privilege is no longer a passport to power.”

In the general UK population, around 7% attend private schools.

The Sutton Trust also said more than two thirds of FTSE 100 chairs were privately educated in 2025, in a 15 percentage point increase from 2019. Nearly half (45%) of chairs attended Oxbridge, and 41% went to both private school and Oxbridge.

Around a third of charity chief executives (34%) went to a private school, 62% of senior judges, 52% of the House of Lords, 50% of newspaper columnists, 45% of podcasters, 47% of political commentators, and 47% of permanent secretaries, the charity said. Among permanent secretaries, 66% are Oxbridge educated, up 10 percentage points since 2019.

This year, the Sutton Trust looked at the educational background of social media influencers and content creators for the first time, and found among this group, 18% had attended private school, and 68% went to a state comprehensive.

A poll by YouGov for the Sutton Trust of 1,492 business senior decision makers also found just 9% of employers said they ask whether employees were eligible for free school meals, and only 15% ask about the profession or class background of employees’ parents, similar levels to 2019.

The polling found there has been a slight increase in the proportion of companies saying they were using contextual recruitment, which considers applicants’ credentials in the context of their background. Up 2% on 2019, 17% of firms said they were using contextual recruitment practices.

The Sutton Trust is calling for the Government to require employers with more than 250 staff to report on the socio-economic background of their workforce, and encourage reporting of class pay gaps. The charity also said employers should look at educational achievements in the context of disadvantage.

Carl Cullinane, director of research and policy at the Sutton Trust, said: “This polling suggests that most employers aren’t building a talent pipeline of young people from less advantaged backgrounds.

“And while there have been efforts to make business more inclusive, work on social mobility is patchy, and too often, social class is not included in the diversity conversation. Just one in 10 companies run specific schemes to support employees in terms of social mobility.

“This means they’re potentially limiting their talent pool. Making the most of talent, wherever it comes from, means employers can move beyond a narrow cohort of candidates from the most advantaged backgrounds. This can be a win-win for employers, society and the economy.”



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Australia fuel crisis: Panic buying prompts PM to reassure nation over fuel supply

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Australia fuel crisis: Panic buying prompts PM to reassure nation over fuel supply



Anthony Albanese says nation’s supply remains “secure” amid reports of panic buying and shortages.



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Meta and YouTube found liable in social media addiction trial

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Meta and YouTube found liable in social media addiction trial



A woman has been awarded $6m in a verdict that could have implications for hundreds of other cases in the US.



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Target faces a new boycott over ICE response as retailer presses ahead with turnaround

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Target faces a new boycott over ICE response as retailer presses ahead with turnaround


A major teachers’ union is calling for its members to skip Target when buying back-to-school supplies, the latest twist in a series of boycotts that have targeted the big-box retailer as its turnaround shows signs of life, CNBC has learned.

The AFT, or American Federation of Teachers, passed a resolution Thursday that calls on its 1.8 million members and others to shop at local stores and not at Target, saying the company did not respond adequately to the surge of federal immigration enforcement in the retailer’s hometown of Minneapolis this winter. Federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, during the operation.

The labor union, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, plans to urge a similar resolution at AFL-CIO’s convention in Minneapolis this summer and at conventions held by other organizations, including the NAACP and LULAC, AFT President Randi Weingarten said.

Target declined to comment specifically on the AFT’s resolution but said in a statement that it has “a longstanding commitment to strengthening the communities we serve,” including donating 5% of profits since the company’s founding and offering a discount to educators as part of a teacher appreciation program.

Target’s annual sales have declined for the past three years in a row, but the company’s new CEO Michael Fiddelke laid out an ambitious plan earlier this month to refresh its stores, add more enticing merchandise and return to sales growth. The retailer said it expects net sales to rise about 2% this fiscal year compared with the prior year and anticipates sales will grow every quarter.

It is unclear if and how much the AFT’s call for a back-to-school boycott could hurt Target, which is trying to win back customers. Earlier this month, Atlanta area pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant announced the end of a yearlong boycott of the company, called Target Fast, which had started because of the company’s rollback of major diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

At a press conference, Bryant said Target has demonstrated its commitment to the Black community with investments in Black businesses and donations to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Yet other activists leading a separate boycott, including former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, have said they continue to call for shoppers to steer clear of Target.

The AFT previously supported and participated in the Target boycott over its DEI rollback.

The retailer has attributed some of its sales losses to backlash to its DEI decision, along with other factors including company missteps with merchandise, a weaker store experience and softer discretionary spending.

At an investor meeting in Minneapolis in early March, Fiddelke stressed that it’s “a new chapter for Target.” He said the company is “doing the work to build connection with new guests, deepen relationships with existing guests and earn back trust with guests we’ve disappointed.”

In a separate email to Target employees earlier this month, Fiddelke highlighted how the retailer is putting its strategy into action, including through its move to cut prices on more than 3,000 items and the opening of its 2,000th store. He said Target has made progress with winning back trust, too, noting the end of the Target Fast boycott.

He said Target has had “ongoing conversations with the organizers” of the boycott, who have “acknowledged the meaningful contributions Target has made, and will continue to make, to the Black community.”

In an interview with CNBC, Weingarten said the AFT’s boycott is focused on what she called Target’s lack of response to the surge of aggressive and violent immigration enforcement in its own backyard. Weingarten said the AFT sent a letter to Target and met with Target staff to encourage them to speak up before the union moved to pass the resolution.

“Target was negotiating with our colleagues in the civil rights community for weeks and weeks and weeks,” she said. “They could have very easily dealt with both [concerns about DEI and immigration enforcement] and they chose not to.”

She said Target is “more worried about standing with the Trump administration than the communities that made them a profitable company.”

Fiddelke joined dozens of executives from Minnesota-based corporations in co-signing a letter in late January calling for an “immediate de-escalation” in the state after the fatal shooting of Pretti. However, the letter did not name the shooting victims Pretti or Good or call out the president, his immigration policies or federal agents.

Fiddelke also shared a video message with employees that more directly acknowledged current events, but stopped short of calling for ICE agents to leave the city or for accountability in the two shooting deaths.

Weingarten described the CEOs’ letter as “insulting” and said it “basically blamed both sides.”

She said the union, which includes many teachers, can have the greatest financial impact during the back-to-school shopping season this summer and fall. By passing the resolution now, she said, the AFT can get the word out to members and “give Target enough time to come back to its senses.”



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