Can you change your accent / people’s perception of your background?

[Canicani]

I truly feel my career would be more successful if people thought I was ‘posh’, in a nutshell. And probably if I was a man tbh.

I know I should think f them and I know it shouldn’t matter but essentially, it does - in my industry anyway. I love my job and I have worked so hard and don’t want to do anything else.

I’m not looking to convince people I’m aristocratic but I’d like to blend in more.

Any tips? Please don’t tear me to shreds!

It depends, my accent is odd. I'm a South midlander living in the the north west so its a weird blend of North and South.

My relative however has done the opposite and I think had elocution lessons as her Wigan accent has been replaced with a Downton abbey RP voice. There's no trace of her old accent and its fake and unnatural.

There’s some interesting pointers in here:

cmym.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/grayson-perry-decoding-the-british-class-system/. There’s a lot of ways to subtly tweak and blend into your working environment. From voice, accent, hair styling, clothing, mannerisms etc to what films you watch, hobbies, music, diet etc. Spend some time working out your colleagues and contacts. Are they old or new money? What do they do on a weekend, what are they reading? Treat these things as codes to understand and blend in with.

Ime, not convincingly, unless you have elocution lessons and remain constantly on your guard.
Typically, people who put on fake accents tend to slip when animated, emotional or caught unawares.
There are variables of course, such as how old you are, how strong your current accent is and the extent of your natural ear and ability to imitate what you hear.

I thinknas a pp has said it isn't the accent but using incorrect grammar that is the issue.

We was/you was/they was etc always sets my teeth on edge but if a broad accent uses correct vocab, l wouldn't bat an eyelid at it

You can take elocution lessons to train you to speak confidently and clearly.

It’s not entirely clear to me with whom exactly you’re trying to ‘fit in’ — you mention aristocracy, but say it’s not them (and that was never going to work, as that’s a birth-only access situation), but then you also mention people who went to public school, which is a much broader church.