UK Indians ... rise to success

It is no longer would come us a surprise but Britain’s ethnic minorities continue to make inroads into the heart of the British career ladder. What is amazing that the rise is phenomenal. Britain’s ethnic minorities are leapfrogging their white counterparts in top jobs and doubling their numbers at top universities.

Within a generation, the overall proportion of Russell Group university students from ethnic minorities has doubled, from 9% in 1995 to 18% currently. The Russell Group of universities are a self-selection of 24 British universities which basically includes the top names including Oxford and Cambridge.    

One has to examine the full picture with the educational trends in the last few decades. Within the whole groups of demographics, Indian and Chinese pupils have been on the top long outshining white British at GCSE, but Bangladeshi pupils first overtook the white majority in 2011 and Black African pupils overtook the white majority in 2013, although their performance has fluctuated slightly since.

Ethnic minorities also outrank their white counterparts in managerial jobs, with 11.6% of them classified as managerial and professional, while 10.8% of whites belong to that class. The tech sector has proved particularly open to British Indians and Chinese, while 35.1% of doctors are non-white as are 32% of NHS consultants.

The report, Bittersweet Success?: Glass Ceilings for Britain’s Ethnic Minorities at the Top of Business and the Professions states  “If you look at the macro data on the rise and rise of the ethnic- minority middle class, you would have to say that Britain has come a very long way in the past 50 years.”

The report produced by the Policy Exchange think tank, concludes that some ethnic minority groups, led by British Indians and British Chinese, have achieved great success as a result of educational effort and entrepreneurial drive.

Its authors are Professor Shamit Saggar, Richard Norrie, Michelle Bannister and David Goodhart. Professor Saggar points out that: “Britain has a melting pot of talent. It is clear from our research that people from a minority background are progressing in nearly every walk of life. This is down to hard work, drive and a determination to succeed, a clear trait among many minority communities. But there are still some blockages and ‘snowy white peaks’ at the very top of business and in our public institutions.”

The latter is also a warning that there is still a long way to go and improvements to be made. Despite these successes, few members of the ethnic minorities have yet reached the “snowy white peaks” at the top of the FTSE 100, the NHS, the civil service and local government. There are just 17 British-born non-white directors of FTSE 100 companies.

They also find it hard to progress in the universities, despite their reputation as bastions of left-liberalism. Only 7.3% of professors at British universities are non-white British, and a mere five of the country’s vice-chancellors, out of more than 150, are non-white.

The future looks rosy, but we may have to wait another few years to see if the glass ceiling is completely smashed.