Lengthy education and vocational training are de rigueur for the ‘professional’ occupations that make up much of NS-SeC Class I and II. At the extremes, after A-levels medics must undertake a further nine years of preparation, and solicitors a further six or seven years. Entry rules are often enshrined in law and governed by members of the professions themselves, thus reducing labour market competition by demanding educational credentials that only those able to afford long periods of study can obtain (which also contributes to the development of a distinctive collective identity and social status). ‘Opportunity hoarding’ (Tilly 1998) by reducing the supply of qualified workers secures higher incomes and the social prestige of exclusive occupations. This middle-class ‘social closure’ is often discussed in terms of human or educational capital and called ‘professionalisation’. In working-class craft trade unions, control over job entry through 5-year apprenticeships and ‘who does what?’ disputes was called the ‘closed shop’.

The market advantage of the older professions has come under attack in recent years. What were once doctors’ prerogatives are being opened up to (cheaper) specialist nurses and local pharmacists. Large legal conglomerates have driven out local family firms of ‘high-street solicitors’, reducing many lawyers to the status of employees rather than self-supervising independent professionals, while more straightforward legal services like conveyancing are now offered by agencies and even Tesco. However, despite this more competitive environment, the new agencies support the idea of prolonged training because they can use it to extract greater profits by controlling the supply of legal services.

The ‘new professions’ in Class 2 have been less successful in establishing social closure. Despite raising entry qualifications from ‘diplomas’ to degree level in teaching, nursing, librarianship and social work – all mainly in the state sector – training requirements have been reduced by government intervention. ‘Free schools’ are no longer obliged to use qualified teachers; training in the form of accelerated in-the-classroom experience is replacing postgraduate educational studies, while the numerical expansion and abuse of the role of Teaching Assistant has diminished the distinctive status of teachers. The latter have been vilified by a recent education minister as part of ‘the Blob’ of Marxists; academics; educationalists; democratically elected local councillors, liberals and teaching trade unions, who should have no say in curriculum content or teaching methods (Gove 2013).