Which universities take the most working class people - and which have the least? See how your university does
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Is class still the defining feature of university education in the UK? We wanted to find out if the official data tells us if that's still the case.
The following table lists the percentage of students that come from routine/manual occupational backgrounds at universities across the UK.
Using this measure, Oxford University has the lowest proportion of working-class students, with 11.5%. London Metropolitan University has the greatest proportion, with 57.2% The average for all universities in the UK is 32.3%.
In the specialist institutions, the Courthauld Institute has just 7.9% coming from routine/manual backgrounds, while Harper Adams University College has 58.7%.
According to the Office for National Statistics, 37% of all people aged 16-63 in the UK are classified as having routine/manual occupations.
The figures below are based on the number of young full time first-degree entrants in 2008/2009. It classifies each student according to the occupation of their parent who is in the more senior position in the workforce. No data is available for students from families who are long term unemployed, and no data is available for universities in the private sector.
The data was originally published by HESA, but HESA takes no responsibility for the analysis and ranking. The percentage of students from routine/manual occupational backgrounds corresponds to the percentage from age adjusted NS-SEC classes 4, 5, 6 and 7.
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