Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether income levels affect socio-economic classifications and, therefore, whether train drivers earning £80,000 per year should be classed as working class under State of the Nation 2024: Local to national, mapping opportunities for all, published by the Social Mobility Commission in September 2024; and what assessment the Office for National Statistics has made of the classification of train drivers under the national statistics socio-economic classifications.

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

Please see the letter attached from the National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority.

Emma Rourke | Acting National Statistician

Lord Jackson of Peterborough

House of Lords

London

SW1A 0PW

30 September 2025

Dear Lord Jackson,

As Acting National Statistician, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking whether income levels affect socio-economic classifications and, therefore, whether train drivers earning £80,000 per year should be classed as working class under State of the Nation 2024: Local to national, mapping opportunities for all, published by the Social Mobility Commission in September 2024; and what assessment the Office for National Statistics has made of the classification of train drivers under the national statistics socio-economic classifications (HL10733).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) does not incorporate income in the methodology or derivation of the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC).

The ONS classifies Train Drivers to the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) 2020 code 8231, which corresponds to " Train and tram drivers”. Under the simplified NS-SEC framework, this occupation is classified as analytic class 5: Lower supervisory and technical occupations.

There are 8 analytic classes in the NS-SEC used by the ONS:

· Higher managerial, administrative and professional occupation

· Lower managerial, administrative and professional occupations

· Intermediate occupations

· Small employers and own account workers

· Lower supervisory and technical occupations

· Semi-routine occupations

· Routine occupations

· Never worked, unemployed, and not elsewhere classified

The Social Mobility Commission groups these into 5 categories: ‘higher professional and managerial’, ‘lower professional and managerial’, ‘intermediate’, ‘higher working class’, and ‘lower working class’.

Yours sincerely,

Emma Rourke