Occupational progression

Published: 18 December 2025
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Data on upward mobility into professional careers for men and women aged 25 to 44 in the UK, by socio-economic background and year.

  1. Summary main findings
  2. By sex
  3. About the data
  4. Download the data

Summary main findings

In both time periods covered by the data – the 3 years to 2016, and the 3 years to 2024:

  • men and women aged 25 to 44 years from professional socio-economic backgrounds were more likely than those from other socio-economic backgrounds to work in professional occupations
  • people’s chances of working in the professional classes went up from 25 to 35 years old, and then slowed or went down in their late 30s and early 40s – the initial increase was greater for young people from professional backgrounds, and the decline is greater for young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

The probability of being in a professional occupation went up across all ages, socio-economic backgrounds and sexes between the 3 years to 2016 and the 3 years to 2024.

In the 3 years to 2016, there was no gap between men and women in the probability of being in a higher professional occupation at 25 years old, for all socio-economic backgrounds.

In the 3 years to 2024, women had slightly higher chances than men of being in a professional job at 25 years old.

By the age of 44 years old, men from all socio-economic backgrounds had a greater chance of being in a higher professional occupation than women.

By sex

Visualisation

Probability of access to the professional classes by socio-economic background, sex and age, controlling for survey year (UK, 2014 to 2016, and 2022 to 2024)

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Data

Probability of access to the professional classes by socio-economic background, sex and age, controlling for survey year (UK, 2014 to 2016, and 2022 to 2024)
Survey period Age (years) Lower working Higher working Intermediate Lower professional Higher professional
Men (%) Women (%) Men (%) Women (%) Men (%) Women (%) Men (%) Women (%) Men (%) Women (%)
2022 to 2024 25 30.8 32.8 34.6 38.8 37.8 41.8 46.7 49.6 54.1 55.3
26 32.5 33.7 36.5 40.0 39.8 43.1 49.3 51.3 56.9 57.2
27 34.0 34.5 38.2 41.1 41.8 44.4 51.7 52.8 59.6 59.0
28 35.4 35.2 39.9 42.1 43.6 45.5 53.9 54.3 61.9 60.6
29 36.6 35.8 41.4 43.0 45.3 46.5 55.9 55.6 64.1 62.1
30 37.7 36.3 42.7 43.7 46.8 47.4 57.8 56.8 66.1 63.5
31 38.7 36.6 43.9 44.4 48.1 48.2 59.4 57.9 67.9 64.7
32 39.5 36.9 44.9 45.0 49.2 48.9 60.9 58.9 69.4 65.8
33 40.1 37.1 45.7 45.4 50.2 49.5 62.1 59.8 70.8 66.8
34 40.6 37.1 46.3 45.7 51.0 49.9 63.2 60.5 72.0 67.7
35 40.9 37.1 46.8 45.9 51.6 50.3 64.1 61.1 73.0 68.4
36 41.0 36.9 47.1 46.0 52.1 50.5 64.9 61.6 73.9 69.1
37 41.0 36.7 47.3 46.0 52.3 50.6 65.5 62.0 74.6 69.6
38 40.8 36.3 47.2 45.8 52.4 50.5 65.9 62.3 75.2 70.1
39 40.4 35.8 47.0 45.6 52.3 50.4 66.1 62.4 75.6 70.4
40 39.9 35.2 46.6 45.2 52.1 50.1 66.2 62.5 75.9 70.7
41 39.2 34.5 46.0 44.7 51.7 49.8 66.2 62.4 76.1 70.8
42 38.3 33.7 45.3 44.1 51.1 49.3 66.0 62.3 76.1 70.8
43 37.3 32.8 44.4 43.4 50.3 48.7 65.6 62.0 76.0 70.8
44 36.1 31.9 43.3 42.5 49.3 47.9 65.1 61.6 75.8 70.6
2014 to 2016 25 20.6 21.5 27.2 27.4 29.1 30.3 39.4 40.4 44.4 43.6
26 21.9 22.6 29.1 28.9 31.1 32.1 42.1 42.8 47.5 46.2
27 23.1 23.6 30.9 30.4 33.0 33.7 44.8 45.1 50.4 48.6
28 24.2 24.5 32.6 31.7 34.9 35.3 47.3 47.2 53.1 50.9
29 25.3 25.2 34.2 32.9 36.6 36.7 49.6 49.1 55.6 53.0
30 26.3 25.9 35.7 34.0 38.2 37.9 51.8 50.9 58.0 54.9
31 27.1 26.5 37.0 34.9 39.7 39.0 53.8 52.5 60.1 56.6
32 27.9 26.9 38.2 35.7 41.1 40.0 55.6 54.0 62.1 58.1
33 28.5 27.1 39.3 36.3 42.2 40.8 57.3 55.2 63.8 59.5
34 29.0 27.3 40.2 36.8 43.3 41.4 58.7 56.3 65.4 60.7
35 29.3 27.3 41.0 37.1 44.1 41.8 60.0 57.2 66.8 61.6
36 29.5 27.1 41.6 37.2 44.8 42.1 61.2 57.9 68.0 62.4
37 29.6 26.8 42.0 37.2 45.4 42.2 62.1 58.4 69.0 63.1
38 29.5 26.4 42.3 37.0 45.7 42.1 62.9 58.8 69.9 63.5
39 29.3 25.9 42.4 36.6 46.0 41.9 63.5 58.9 70.6 63.8
40 28.9 25.2 42.3 36.1 46.0 41.5 64.0 58.9 71.2 64.0
41 28.5 24.4 42.1 35.4 45.9 40.9 64.3 58.8 71.7 63.9
42 27.9 23.5 41.7 34.5 45.6 40.1 64.4 58.5 72.0 63.8
43 27.1 22.5 41.2 33.6 45.1 39.2 64.4 58.0 72.1 63.4
44 26.3 21.4 40.5 32.4 44.5 38.1 64.3 57.3 72.2 62.9
  • Download the data (CSV, 3KB)

    • Download

    For the full download file, see Download the data.

    About the data

    Data source

    Office for National Statistics (ONS), Labour Force Survey (LFS)

    Time period

    • 2014 to 2016 (combined)
    • 2022 to 2024 (combined)

    Geographic area

    UK

    What the data measures

    The data shows the patterns of upward career mobility into the professional classes (known as intra-generational mobility) for people aged 25 to 44 years in the UK.

    Data is shown for the following socio-economic backgrounds:

    • higher professional class
    • lower professional class
    • intermediate class
    • higher working class
    • lower working classes

    These are based on the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC), set by the ONS.

    Things you need to know

    The data used is weighted using LFS person weights.

    The error bars show 95% confidence intervals. Read more about confidence intervals.

    Type of data

    Survey data

    Full report

    Read more in State of the Nation 2025 on GOV.UK.

    Download the data

    Download full dataset (CSV, 81KB)

    This file contains the following variables:

    • Measure code
    • Measure title
    • Chart type
    • Area code
    • Area type
    • Area name
    • Primary split type
    • Primary split value
    • Secondary split type
    • Secondary split value
    • Tertiary split type
    • Tertiary split value
    • Fourth split type
    • Fourth split value
    • Time period
    • Value
    • Lower confidence interval
    • Upper confidence interval
    • Unit

    Page history

    Publication release date:

    18 December 2025

    Editions of this page:

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