"Good jobs reserved for the rich"

Chip on our shoulders officially vindicated.

The Panel on Fair Access to Professions may have discovered what you directly found out a long time ago, but it's nice to see it nice and neat, sculpted in print, and stated by an official body: top professions are increasingly closed off to all but the most affluent (and best connected) families.

Established in January, the Panel on Fair Access is a study carried out by experts on social mobility as well as professional bodies from across the spectrum, from the armed forces to accountancy and from academia to engineering, law, civil service and others. Chaired by former Minister Alan Milburn, the guy who quit the cabinet to stay with his family and then came back, the Panel has published its final report.

So, daddy's boys and girls, brace yourself for the mother of all revelations, because it is now official that "professions [have] a "closed shop mentality" and "have become more and not less exclusive over time". According to Alan Milburn, we should encourage a "a second great wave of social mobility" like it happened in the 1950s and 1960s "to match a projected growth in the number of managerial jobs".

"What we have got to do is open up these opportunities so they are available for everybody", he added, while the report warns that "people entering careers such as medicine, law and journalism are increasingly likely to be from more affluent families".

According to BBC News, "the report does not only focus on the poorest part of the population - but suggests that many middle-income families are also missing out in an increasingly polarised jobs market".