The NRS social grades are a system of demographic classification used in the United Kingdom. They were originally developed by the National Readership Survey (NRS) to classify readers, but are now used by many other organisations for wider applications and have become a standard for market research.[1] They were developed in the late 1950s and refined in following years and achieved widespread usage in 20th century Britain. Their definition is now maintained by the Market Research Society.[2]

The distinguishing feature of the NRSpp social grade is that it is based on occupation, rather than wealth or property ownership.

Grades

The classifications are based on the occupation of the head of the household.[1]

Grade Social class Chief income earner's occupation Frequency in 2008[3] Frequency in 2016[4]
A Upper middle classHigher managerial roles, administrative or professional 4% 4%
B Middle middle classIntermediate managerial roles, administrative or professional 23% 23%
C1 Lower middle classSupervisory or clerical and junior managerial roles, administrative or professional 29% 28%
C2 Skilled working classSkilled manual workers 21% 20%
D Working classSemi-skilled and unskilled manual workers 15% 15%
E Non-workingState pensioners, casual and lowest grade workers, unemployed with state benefits only. 8% 10%

The grades are often grouped into ABC1 and C2DE; these are taken to equate to middle class and working class, respectively. Only around 2% of the UK population is identified as upper class,[5] and this group is not separated by the classification scheme.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Wilmshurst, J. & MacKay, A., The Fundamentals of Advertising, (1999)
  2. ↑ Occupation groupings: a job dictionary. Market Research Society Archived 29 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine, London, 2006.
  3. ↑ "Social Grade: A Classification Tool" (PDF). Ipsos. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 March 2016. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
  4. ↑ "Social Grade | National Readership Survey". www.nrs.co.uk. Retrieved 19 November 2018.
  5. ↑ Glover, Julian (20 October 2007). "Riven by class and no social mobility - Britain in 2007". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 17 October 2009.
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