According to new research from the Social Mobility Commission, professionals with working-class backgrounds are paid £6,800 less on average each year than people with more affluent backgrounds.
The biggest pay gap was found to be in finance which saw working-class people earn an average of £13,713 less. This was followed by medicine where the pay gap was £10,218 and then IT at 
£4,736.
The research was carried out by the London School of Economics and University College London. It analysed data from the UK labour force survey which included 90,000 respondents. They looked at average earnings of professionals from different backgrounds and found clear gaps.
Alan Milburn, chairman of the commission has said that this 17% pay gap signals that the UK is a “deeply elitist” society.
The research found that many professions are still dominated by people from more privileged backgrounds, like medicine, law, academia and journalism.
73% of doctors, 66% of journalists are from professional and managerial backgrounds. 6% and 12% are from working-class backgrounds on the other hand.
The report said: “The odds of those from professional backgrounds ending up in professional jobs are 2.5 times higher than the odds of those from less advantaged backgrounds reaching the professions.”
The report also found that black and minority ethnic workers earned less than their white colleagues. The only exception to this was people from Chinese backgrounds.
What Are the Reasons for This?
The research found that the differences were caused partly by differences in educational background. It found that middle class workers were more likely to work at bigger companies or work in London, accounting for their higher salaries.
However, the Commission found that even those with the same education, jobs and experience still earned on average £2,242 less if they were from poorer backgrounds.
The Commission has suggested that one of the reasons for this is that people from working-class backgrounds are less likely to ask for pay rises and have access to the same networks that allow people from richer backgrounds to progress more easily.
Despite this, there was still evidence that social mobility was on the up and is the “norm and not the exception”. 48% of people had advanced up the career ladder from their parents’, as opposed to 31% who had ended up in a worse position.
Dr Sam Friedman, from the LSE and co-author of the report said: “While social mobility represents the norm, not the exception, in contemporary Britain, there is no doubt that strong barriers to opportunity still persist.”
A government spokesperson said that they were determined to address the issue of a class-based wage gap. “We are looking at ways to deliver more good school places in more parts of the country, investing in improving careers education, transforming the quality of further and technical education and opening up access to our world-class higher education system.”
“The government is also targeting social mobility coldspots with 12 opportunity areas where we are working with local organisations, schools, colleges, and businesses to overcome barriers to social mobility and make sure young people from all backgrounds can go as far as their talents will take them.”
What do you think of this new research? Should more be done to balance the scales? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.