Headlines
In Spring 2025, the Creative Diversity Network (CDN) updated the Diamond survey to include questions about socioeconomic background. From this date, contributors who were new to Diamond or whose previous survey expired, completed the new survey with these additional questions. For programmes broadcast in between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026, almost 180,000 programme contributions were linked to over 12,000 new diversity forms.
The TV production industry is dominated by people who grew up in a professional household. Both on and off-screen, almost 60% of programme contributions come from cast and crew who grew up in a professional household compared to 37% of people in the general working population who come from a similar household.
Consequently, those from a working-class background make only around one quarter of programme contributions (27% off-screen; 26% on-screen), despite making up 39% of the national working population.
As an industry, there are also relatively few contributions being made by people from an intermediary background (14% off-screen and 16% on-screen compared to 24% nationally), with the ‘missing middle’ perhaps accentuating the divide felt between the other two other groups as well as the overall dominance of the professional classes.
Professional background
Professional backgrounds include modern professional and traditional occupations; senior or junior managers or administrators. Intermediate backgrounds include clerical and intermediate occupations and small business owners. Working class backgrounds include technical and craft occupations; long-term unemployed; and routine, semi routine, manual and service occupations. More details about how we classify occupations can be found here.
Private school attendance is also higher than the national average with 13% of off-screen contributions and 14% of on-screen contributions being made by people who attended a fee-paying school compared to the national average (7.5%)
Although senior and non-senior roles share a very similar profile when it comes to parental occupation, there are differences between these two groups when it comes to private school attendance. 17% of off-screen senior role contributions were made by someone who was privately educated compared to 11% of non-senior role contributions, possibly indicating that educational privilege is more important than class privilege when it comes to getting on in the industry.
On-screen, Children’s programmes have the highest proportion of contributions coming from people who grew up in a professional household (67%) and also the highest rate of contributions from people who attended a private school (25%).
Senior roles
When it comes to parental occupation, the proportion of professional, intermediary and working-class backgrounds is very similar across both senior and non-senior roles. 27% of both senior and non-senior contributions coming from people who grew up in a working-class household, and both senior and non-senior role cohorts being dominated by those from professional households.
Although attendance at a fee-paying school is higher than the national average across both cohorts, there is, however, a higher prevalence of private school attendees among those in senior roles than in non-senior roles. 21% of senior contributors attended a fee-paying school and made 17% of programme contributions in a senior role compared to 11% of non-senior contributors who went to a private school and made 13% of non-senior contributions.
Genres
Off-screen, all genres have at least 55% of contributions being made by people who grew up in a professional household, which is high compared to the proportion of people nationally who have this background (37%).
Drama and Current Affairs have particularly large proportions of contributions made by people from this group (64% and 65% respectively).Consequently, these genres have low representation from working class groups (24% Drama and 19% Current Affairs).
Instead, people from a working-class background are making the most contributions off-screen on Lifestyle (30%) and Factual Entertainment (32%) programmes, although representation is still low compared to the population benchmark (39%).
In other production roles, over-50s are making most contributions in Costume and Wardrobe (69%) jobs. They are also highly represented in Set Crafts (48%), Commissioning (46%), and Hair and Make-Up (44%).
However, people over 50 are making fewer contributions in Set Design (22%) as well as Visual Effects and other general Production roles (both around 25% contributions). Over-50s are under-represented in these roles compared to workforce estimates (29.1%).
On-screen roles
Although over-50s make up almost half of the national population (47%), on-screen they make only around one third of non-scripted contributions and around one fifth of scripted appearances.
Furthermore, over-50s are far less likely to be appearing as Lead Actor (13%) but more likely to be appearing as a Supporting Actor (23%) or in a Background role (32%).
People over 50 are more likely to be making an appearance in a Main Contributor or Contributor role (both 37%) than in a Presenter role (27%). The proportion of contributions made by over-50s in a Presenter role has increased considerably over the past five years – from 13% in 2020 to 27% in 2025.
Broadcasters
Representation by over-50s off-screen has been increasing on all programmes except those made by Sky. In 2025, the proportion of contributions being made by over-50s was highest for UKTV programmes (36%) and ITV (33%), and lowest for Channel 4 programmes (21%).
On-screen, a similar pattern of growth is evident at most broadcasters. However, the proportion of contributions being made by over-50s on Sky’s programmes has been decreasing – from a high of 38% in 2019 to the second lowest of all broadcasters (29%) in 2025. Between 2023 and 2025, ITV saw substantial increases in the proportion of contributions being made by over-50s both on and off-screen.