Further training and qualifications
Published:
12 September 2023
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Data on the percentage of people aged 25 and 32 years with a university degree, by socio-economic background.
Summary main findings
Data from 2014 and 2021 shows that the percentage of young people with university degrees went up between the ages of 25 and 32 years.
20% of people from working class backgrounds had a degree by 25 years old, rising to 34% by 32 years old.
34% of people from intermediate backgrounds had a degree by 25 years old, rising to 55% by 32 years old.
57% of people from professional backgrounds had a degree by 25 years old, rising to 70% by 32 years old.
By socio-economic background
Visualisation
Percentage of young people born in 1989 who had degrees by the ages of 25 and 32 years, by socio-economic background (UK, 2014 and 2021)
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Data
| Age | Working (%) | Intermediate (%) | Professional (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | 20.3 | 34.2 | 56.7 |
| 32 | 33.9 | 54.7 | 69.7 |
Download
For the full download file, see Download the data.
About the data
Data source
Office for National Statistics (ONS), Labour Force Survey (LFS) from 2014 and 2021
Time period
2014 and 2021
Geographic area
UK
What the data measures
The data shows the percentage of people born in 1989 who had a university degree by the ages of 25 and 32 years old, by socio-economic background.
Data is shown for the following socio-economic backgrounds:
- professional class (combining the higher and lower professional classes)
- intermediate class
- working class (combining the higher and lower working classes)
These are based on the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC), set by the ONS.
Things you need to know
Data is weighted using LFS probability weights.
The data compares 2 separate samples from surveys carried out in 2014 and 2021. It does not compare the same individuals at different time points.
The data includes people aged 25 years in the first group, as most young people have completed full-time education and started work by that age.
The error bars show 95% confidence intervals. These intervals show where we expect the true value from a population to be 95% of the time. For example, a confidence interval with the range of values from 5 to 10 implies that there is a 95% chance that the true population value is between 5 and 10, and a 5% chance that it is outside of this range. The narrower the confidence interval or range, the more precise the estimate. Read more about confidence intervals
Type of data
Survey data
Full report
Read more in State of the Nation 2023 on GOV.UK.
Download the data
Download full dataset (CSV, 1KB)
This file contains the following variables:
- Indicator code
- Indicator name
- Area type
- Area code
- Area name
- Time period
- Socio-economic background
- Age
- Sex
- Value
- Sample size
- Lower confidence interval
- Upper confidence interval
- Standard error
- Unit
Page history
Publication release date:
12 September 2023