The National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (often abbreviated to NS-SEC) is the official socio-economic classification in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. It is an adaptation of the Goldthorpe schema which was first known as the Nuffield Class Schema developed in the 1970s. It was developed using the Standard Occupational Classification 1990 (SOC90) and rebased on the Standard Occupational Classification 2000 (SOC2000) before its first major use on the 2001 UK census. The NS-SEC replaced two previous social classifications: Socio-economic Groups (SEG) and Social Class based on Occupation (SC, formerly known as Registrar General's Social Class, RGSC). The NS-SEC wa
rebased on the Standard Occupational Classification 2010
prior to the

2011 UK census A census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011. It was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Internet. The Office for National ...

and it will be further rebased on the new Standard Occupational Classification 2020 for use on the 2021 UK census. The NS-SEC is a nested classification. It has 14 operational categories, with some sub-categories, and is commonly used in eight-class, five-class, and three-class versions. Only the three-category version is intended to represent any form of

hierarchy A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...

. The version intended for most users (the analytic version) has eight classes: # Higher

managerial Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

and

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and sk ...

occupations # Lower managerial and professional occupations # Intermediate occupations (clerical, sales, service) # Small

employer Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any o ...

s and own account workers # Lower supervisory and

technical Technical may refer to: * Technical (vehicle), an improvised fighting vehicle * Technical analysis, a discipline for forecasting the future direction of prices through the study of past market data * Technical drawing, showing how something is co ...

occupations # Semi-routine occupations # Routine occupations # Never worked or long-term unemployed The three-class version is reduced to following: #Higher occupations #Intermediate occupations #Lower occupations

References

{{reflist Demographics of the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics Socio-economic mobility

See also

References