Report Overview
We’ve analysed the education backgrounds of Rishi Sunak’s first cabinet. The majority were privately educated, with 61% attending an independent school.
61%
The proportion of the new cabinet who were privately educated.
45%
The proportion who attended Oxbridge.
32%
The proportion of cabinet ministers who went to both an independent school and Oxbridge.
Key Findings
- 61% of the cabinet were educated at fee-paying schools, while 23% went to a comprehensive and 13% attended a grammar school. They are nearly nine times more likely to have gone to an independent school than the general population (roughly 7%).
- This proportion of alumni of independent schools is lower than Liz Truss’s cabinet (61% versus 68%), but similar to Boris Johnson’s first cabinet (64%). It is more than twice that of Theresa May’s 2016 cabinet (30%), and more than Cameron’s 2015 cabinet (50%).
- The proportion of cabinet ministers educated at comprehensive schools is similar to Liz Truss’s cabinet at 23% vs Truss’s 19%, but lower than Boris Johnson’s first cabinet (27%). A number of those heading up key departments – including the Chancellor, the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary – are educated at independent schools.
- The proportion of independently educated ministers attending cabinet is less than earlier cabinets under Conservative Prime Ministers, John Major (71% in 1992) and Margaret Thatcher (91% in 1979). Tony Blair and Gordon Brown both had 32% of those attending cabinet privately educated, while 25% of Clement Attlee’s first cabinet had been privately educated.
- Of the 31 ministers attending Sunak’s new cabinet, nearly half (45%) went to Oxford or Cambridge. This compares with 27% of all Conservative MPs, 18% of Labour MPs and 21% of all MPs.
- 32% of the new cabinet went from fee-paying schools to Oxbridge.