Class System in the UK

Although the class system has been getting less serious between 20th century and 21st century, it still exists in British society. Plus these days, people called "New Rich" who became wealthy through IT business came out. British class system is roughly divided into four groups, which are Upper Class, Upper Middle Class, Middle Class, and Working Class. According to the book, The 21st Century Encyclopedia of British Culture, only one percent of people belong to Upper Class. 10-20 percent of people belong to Upper Middle Class. 30-40 percent of people belong to Middle Class. The rest of people are Working Class. Of course there are many homeless in the UK, and we can categorize the class into more complicated, but there are four classes if we roughly classify as I stated.　

• What kind of class is New Rich?

In 1970, the UK was struggling for depression and working conflict. Especially in 1978, many strikes broke out because of opposition against the policy by the government which restricted wages. As the result, Conservative Party lead by Prime Minister Thatcher was established. She carried out very aggressive method so that economy would turn back to normal. For example, introducing foreign capital and following competitive principle. Thanks to this, British economy got better in 1990s through 21st century. The main thing helped this boom was IT business, and the people who got rich from IT business are called New Rich. However, due to subprime mortgage crisis occurred in the US in 2008, British economy nosedived. At the same time some New Rich people are facing seriously bad situation.

• What kind of jobs are classified into these four groups?

Upper Class
 Aristocrats such as royal family
Upper Middle Class
 Doctor
 Laywer
 CEO
 Professor
Middle Class
 Company employee
 Public employee
Working Class
 Those who are doing physical work, in other word the unskilled

• What difference does each class have?

One characteristics between each class is accent. Generally speaking, we can recognize what class they belong to by their accent. The typical British English is called“RP (Received Pronunciation)" also known as “King’s English”, “Queen’s English”. It is said that people who can speak RP is below three percent of the population. Former prime minister of the UK, Tony Blair, is a good example who can speak RP. He might have been naturally practicing speaking RP through his career, which he went to public school, Oxford University, and became a lawyer. Meanwhile Margaret Thatcher is said that having taken lessons how to speak RP with a tutor after she became prime minister. Strictly speaking, RP and the pronunciation spoken by Upper Class are different. Originally RP is the pronunciation spoken by educated people in Upper Middle who went to public school and a prestigious university such as Oxford and Cambridge. Upper Class consists of only a few royal family and aristocrats, and their accent is just their own language, not RP.

• Movie recommended to learn British Class System
  

My Fair Lady

The Full Monty

Reference
Deguchi, Yasuo. Kobayashi, Akio. Saitou, Takako. The 21st Century Encyclopeadia of British Culture. Tokyo: Tokyo shoseki, 2009.