A new study from the Social Mobility Foundation finds that if you’re a professional worker from a working-class background, you’re making around £6,291 less each year compared to those from a professional-managerial background. That’s a 12% pay gap, even if you’re doing the same job.

The study found that folks from a professional-managerial background earn, on average, £51,728, while those from a working-class background earn £45,437. This pay gap means that on November 17th, which they call Class Pay Gap Day, workers from the working class essentially start working for free, taking home nothing for one out of every eight days they work.

The pay gap is even wider in the private sector. If you’re in a professional job in the private sector and from a working-class background, you’re making £7,575 less than someone from a professional-managerial background. In other sectors, the pay gap is still there but not as big, at £4,750. Private sector jobs make up 82% of the UK workforce, so this is a big deal.

For professional women from working-class backgrounds, it’s a double whammy. There’s a pay gap of £7,042 between them and their professional-managerial counterparts doing the same job.

Feeling the gap

A survey of young people aged 16-18 in the summer of 2023 revealed that 72% of them feel the Class Pay Gap makes them less interested in applying for elite jobs like law and finance. And a whopping 89% said they’d be more excited about working for a company that actively works on fixing social mobility and making things more equal.

“A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work is the least anyone should expect,” the authors conclude. “But too many of Britain’s workplaces share a shameful secret. It cannot be right that professionals from working-class backgrounds are paid significantly less than their peers in the same occupation. “