To ask what class you think you are?

[IHate]

People always say everyone on MN is middle class, but are we?! I honestly think it’s a pretty socioeconomically diverse mix.

What class would you say you are? Curious how people map themselves when you take both background and current life into account.

These are the rough descriptions I’m working from (from Reddit - I didn’t write them, so please don’t come for me 🤣). Heritage first, income last.

Upper class
Old families, land, inherited wealth, public schools, Oxbridge, connections that run through generations. Sparse vowels, quiet confidence, and a sense that everything important happens in drawing rooms you will never see.

Typical household income: irrelevant, wealth is inherited.

Likelihood of two parent families: very high.

Age at first child: early thirties.

Upper middle class
Professionals with long-standing pedigree. Parents and grandparents were doctors, civil servants, academics, barristers, consultants, senior military. Private or grammar schooling, strong cultural capital, instinctive ease in elite spaces. This is the group most people mean when they say “middle class”.

Typical household income: often £150k plus.

Likelihood of two parent families: high. Age at first child: early to mid thirties.

Middle class
Educated, comfortable, but not posh. Teachers, mid-level civil servants, senior nurses, managers, small business owners. Cultural capital is mixed. Grandparents may have been skilled workers. Big on gardens, National Trust, and well-behaved children.

Typical household income: around £90k to £150k.

Likelihood of two parent families: moderate to high.

Age at first child: late twenties to early thirties.

Lower middle class
Clerical, admin, retail management, entry-level professional families. Polite, aspirational, very aware of class boundaries. Parents or grandparents often from working class backgrounds. Transitional rather than settled.

Typical household income: around £60k to £90k.

Likelihood of two parent families: mixed.

Age at first child: mid to late twenties.

Working class
Manual trades, industrial work, care work, service work. Strong community identity, distinctive humour, bluntness valued over polish. Heritage is key. You can earn millions and remain working class because class is about where you come from, not what you now earn.

Typical household income: usually under £60k, though can be higher.

Likelihood of two parent families: lower than middle groups.

Age at first child: late teens to mid twenties.

Precariat
Insecure work, unstable housing, gig economy. Identity varies, but the instability itself defines the experience.

Typical household income: under £25k.

Likelihood of two parent families: low.

Age at first child: late teens to mid twenties.

I’m solidly working class. Also, if discussions about class make you cross, this is probably not the thread for you.

I love these threads as they remind me how much of a stranger I am in the UK as an Irish person.

No one gives this stuff much thought where I'm from.

Neither of my parents went to uni, they grew up piss poor in big families. I benefited from good quality state education including free/affordable uni, as did my partner from a similar background. Our HH income puts us in your upper middle class bracket because we're both pretty smart and ambitious, not because we're a particular class.

Me: Middle - parents are teacher & degree educated engineer. National trust volunteers 😂. We were raised with a lot of focus on education but also a decent slug of cultural capital - music lessons, french exchanges, taken to theatre, ballet & opera.

My parents were probably more lower middle - first in their families to access higher ed. Their parents were police on one side, and factory workers on the other.

Dh is upper middle. Parents were multi generation wealthy/ privately educated - consultant doctor and architect. Dh and siblings went to prep & private school. Skiing, tennis, expensive holidays, massive exposure to art & music.

Our kids atm I would class as middle but some might argue upper middle. They are state educated but its at my insistence not lack of funds. DH and I are both director/vp level in financial roles with a high household income. Our kids have a lot of access to music/creative arts & play two instruments each, we go skiing and travel. Both sets of grandparents own holiday homes abroad so they have been to France & Spain a lot

To me its not really about what you earn, although i think its harder (not impossible) to provide a middle or upper middle class upbringing on a lower income. Its more about how you choose to spend your time, your values etc.

Middle and lower middle are a bit off
We are educated professionals but not getting 90k. I very much doubt teachers, nurses and civil servants are either

They easily would be. An experienced teacher or head of department is often on 50k plus (in london it can be pushing £60k), something like a compliance manager in hmrc or the like would be on 70k plus. A band 7 nurse would be on around 50k. Lots of civil servants are on 60k plus.

Its household income so two earners in those roles easily gets to £90k.

That's only if they are self employed and have a decent customer base. My DN is an electrician and earned a lot as SE, travelling to various countries for work. For various reasons he switched to employed and he is paid an hourly salary, which is decent but certainly not massive.

I'm guessing you are English op!
The rest of the UK are not obsessed with this class shit.
You either have class or you don't.
This is rather classless, imo

household income middle class . But I would say we are lower middle class .

Middle. Parents both professional training, although SAHM. I have a decent profession with good wages but will never make millions. But own my own house (which we bought, not inherited) and live relatively comfortably.

Your ‘first child’ criteria is nonsense 😂

Aside from that, I’m ‘middle-middle’ with lower middle and working class family roots.

Oh I don’t know about that. France is fairly class-obsessed!

A few people have said this about Ireland and I’m quite surprised.

DH is Irish and his family fits the UMC description so perfectly that he thought I was winding him up. Ditto most of his mates. They certainly wouldn’t ever describe themselves as upper middle class, but it’s very clear that’s what they are. I’ve spent quite a lot of time in Ireland and there are definitely posh people and less posh people!

I’m not even British, so no. 🙂

And nobody is being coerced into contributing to this ‘classless’ thread, dear.

I enjoy these class conversations.Once saw a light-hearted quiz, what class are you.
3 questions I remember
1.Do you say sofa or settee
2.Do you say lounge, living room or sitting room
3.Do you say toilet or lav
🤣🤣

I have no idea what class I am. Genuinely. It’s never been a thing in my life. Again if I asked my friends “what class are you” they would look at me like I was an alien. And this isn’t one friendship group, these are different groups and people from all over.

I’m so grateful no one in my reality gives a shit about class. It’s the most cringe and self obsessed notion I’ve heard.

Forgot to mention,do you say front room.I do , that's working class🤣
I say sofa now but my parents used to call it a settee.If you say loo it's working class too..

Maybe there is a whole generation who don't see class now?

I'm middle class by your definition, DP was raised working/precariat, our lifestyle and income now is lower middle class. I constantly feel we aren't achieving enough, DP constantly feels astounded at what we/the children have. I would say it's very squarely in the middle of our relationship. It doesn't cause problems, we are incredibly happy, but it requires sensitivity and understanding on my part. The children never got this memo tho lmao

I find reading British class threads very interesting as an immigrant (have lived in a few different countries before here) and I think skilled trades are one of the interesting differences.

In 2 of the countries I've lived in, skilled tradesmen are seen similarly to how the British see small/medium business owners, definitely middle class and well-off, going to charity dinners etc. They are self-employed and the career path involves building your own business with other tradesmen under you.

In a 3rd country the history of skilled trades is more linked to industrial/factories/labour unions, so the stereotype is more working class, mass employment kind of thing. Even if you are an advanced specialist you are still never "The Boss".

I find it hard to place Britain because trades seem to pay well but aren't seen as middle class culturally.

In real life nobody gives a stuff in the UK either. Social class obsession is peculiar to MN. Even then I suspect it’s only a tiny minority.

The only time it enters my head is when I see it mentioned on here.

Awful post. Defining our social is last thing we need.

I don't recognise myself in any of those.

When I grew up my parents didn't have a lot of money, but we went to private school (paid by my grand-parents) and had access to an enormous cultural capital because we were living in an EU capital city and my parents were some sort of penny-less idealistic artists, so books everywhere, family friends were musicians, writers, painters etc..

I consider myself middle-class now. Household income of a bit less than £90k but its just me, and I still hold onto that cultural capital (in other words: I'm an insufferable snob)

I did the BBC class quiz, and am firmly 'Elite' in terms of income and my own interests and cultural capital. Yet I grew up run a home where we had a settee. We also had tea, not dinner or supper.

In the south it's always dinner or if later supper,in the evening, regardless of class🙂

Oh apart from Sundays, weirdly,it was Sunday dinner and tea,in our working class family

This is so interesting!

It's not that there aren't posh people in Ireland, or that there isn't socioeconomic stratification (and snobbery). You get that everywhere, but I don't think there's the same level of class consciousness. I was certainly never aware of my social class, although I'm sure there are many people in the UK who would say the same. Class is an absurd concept.