en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_structure_of_the_United_Kingdom
Middle class
[edit]Lower middle class
The British lower middle class primarily consists of white-collar workers and their families living in less affluent suburbs. They are typically employed in white-collar but relatively unskilled service industry jobs such as retail sales, rail ticket agents, railway guards, airline stewardesses and ticket agents, travel agents, hotel clerks, shipping clerks, factory and other industrial building owners and low level civil service jobs in local and regional government. Prior to the expansion in higher education from the 1960s onwards, members of this class generally did not have a university education.
Member of the lower middle class typically speak in local accents, although relatively mild. Typical Mosaic Geodemographic types for this group include Sprawling Subtopia or for successful British Asians Asian Enterprise. Votes in this area are split and minority parties will have a stronger proportion. The comedy character Hyacinth Bucket is a satirical stereotype for this social group.
[edit]Middle middle class
The middle middle class in Britain often consists of people with tertiary education. They speak in accents which could range from received pronunciation, to provincial as well as Estuary English. They may have been educated in either state or private schools.[13]
Typical jobs include accountants, architects, teachers, social workers, managers, specialist IT workers, business people, engineers, or civil servants. Displays of conspicuous consumption are considered vulgar by them; instead they prefer to channel excess income into investments, including and especially property.
Members of the middle middle class are often politically and socially engaged and might be regular churchgoers, sit on local committees and governing boards or stand for political office. Education is greatly valued by the middle classes: they will make every effort to ensure their children get a university education; although they are sometimes unable to afford private schooling, they may go to great lengths to get their children into good state schools, such as moving house into the catchment area.[14]
They also value culture and make up a significant proportion of the book-buying and theatre-going public. They typically read broadsheet newspapers rather than tabloids. Typical Mosaic geodemographic types would include Provincial Privilege. The comedy character Margo Leadbetter is a satirical stereotype for this group, as is Jilly Cooper's Howard Weybridge.[11]
[edit]Upper middle class
Upper Middle Class
The upper middle class in Britain broadly consists of people who were born into families which have traditionally possessed high incomes, although this group is defined more by family background than by job or income. This stratum, in England, traditionally uses the Received Pronunciation dialect natively and was traditionally frequently associated with professionals with tertiary education.
The upper middle class are traditionally educated at more prestigious private schools, called "public schools". These were predominantly founded to serve the educational needs of the upper middle class, whose children have always constituted the majority of their customers.[15]
Many upper-middle-class families may have previous ancestry that often directly relates to the upper classes. Although not necessarily of the landowning classes - as a result, perhaps, of lack of a male heir - many families' titles/styles have not been inherited and therefore many families' past status became dissolved.
Although such categorisations are not precise, popular contemporary examples of upper-middle-class people might include Boris Johnson, Nick Clegg and David Cameron (politicians),[16] Helena Bonham Carter[17] (actress), Matthew Pinsent (rower and TV personality) and Nigella Lawson (television presenter).[18]