Creative Diversity Network (CDN) has published its first deep dive into socio-economic representation on and off-screen in the U.K. television industry. The report uses data gathered through the Diamond workforce monitoring and reporting platform and covers content aired from April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026.
The report provides the first set of official data and confirms that the U.K.’s television industry is dominated by people who grew up in a professional household. Both on and off-screen, almost 60 percent of program contributions were made by cast and crew from this background; this compares to 37 percent of people in the general working population who come from a similar household.
People from a working-class background made only around one quarter of program contributions (27 percent off-screen; 26 percent on-screen), despite making up 39 percent of the national working population.
Across the industry, private school education is higher than the national average with 13 percent of off-screen contributions and 14 percent of on-screen contributions being made by people who attended a fee-paying school compared to the national average (7.5 percent).
Children’s programs had the highest proportion of on-screen contributions from people who grew up in a professional household (67 percent) and also the highest rate of contributions from people who attended a private school (25 percent).
Drama and Current Affairs had particularly large proportions of off-screen contributions made by people from a professional background (64 percent and 65 percent respectively). Consequently, these genres had low representation from working class groups (24 percent Drama and 19 percent Current Affairs).
Miranda Wayland, chief executive, Creative Diversity Network, said: “For a long time, we’ve had to rely on guestimates and anecdotal evidence about socio-economic representation in the U.K. television industry. Now, for the first time, Diamond is providing the data and evidence confirming that coming from a home where your parents had a professional background, or being privately educated gives you a head start into a career in television and helps you progress.
“We hope that broadcasters, production companies and other bodies will use this data, just as they have with other Diamond data, to shape policies to help make our industry a level playing field for creative talent from every household.”
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