A private education and an affluent background are still instrumental factors in getting employees to the top of their profession, according to a Leading People 2016 report by the Sutton Trust.

The organisation, which promotes social mobility, found that while the comprehensive system educates 88% of the UK population today, 74% of top judges attended independent schools; and 61% of top doctors, and 51% of leading print journalists were educated privately.

In politics, 32% of MPs were privately educated, while 34% of UK educated FTSE 100 chief executives went to private school.

The report looks at the educational backgrounds of leading figures in 10 professions: the military, medicine, politics, civil service, journalism, business, law, music, film and Nobel Prize winners, and is published ahead of the launch of an all-party parliamentary group inquiry into how to improve social mobility across the country.

The trust has called for greater transparency around diversity, including pay gaps associated with both gender and education and recruitment practices. It urged employers to pay interns the national living wage after four weeks and the government to provide more support for gifted children in the state sector.

“As well as academic achievement an independent education tends to develop essential skills such as confidence, articulacy and team work which are vital to career success”, said Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust and of the Education Endowment Foundation.

“Young people from more advantaged backgrounds also often have broader professional social networks, which can be used to access certain jobs, as well as parents who might be more able to support them through unpaid internships, which are increasingly important for career development”, said Philip Kirby, research fellow at the Sutton Trust.

According to the research, 7% of the general population in the UK is privately educated.

For the full report, click here.