A third of Britons believe they have changed social class, survey finds
A recent survey reveals that a third of Britons believe they have changed social class, with many identifying as part of multiple classes. The term 'polyclass' has been introduced to describe the 6 million people who feel they belong to more than one social category. Working-class individuals are less likely to report class changes, with many feeling judged based on their social status.
- ▪More than a third of Britons say they have changed social class according to a survey by Attest.
- ▪The term 'polyclass' describes 6 million British people identifying with multiple social categories.
- ▪Working-class individuals are least likely to report class changes, with 70% stating they remain in the same class they were born into.
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| Original publisher | The Guardian — World |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2026/may/16/social-class-working-upper-changed-attest-survey-uk |
| Publication time | Sat, 16 May 2026 09:00:06 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-16T09:05:17.934Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-16T09:05:17.934Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | EXoxBOrSRqfN |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Saltburn, the 2023 film starring Barry Keoghan (centre), explores issues surrounding social class in modern Britain. Photograph: BFA/AlamyView image in fullscreenSaltburn, the 2023 film starring Barry Keoghan (centre), explores issues surrounding social class in modern Britain. Photograph: BFA/AlamyClass issuesA third of Britons believe they have changed social class, survey finds‘Polyclass’ of 6 million people consider themselves to belong to more than one social category, researchers sayRobyn VinterSat 16 May 2026 05.00 EDTLast modified on Sat 16 May 2026 05.01 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on GoogleMore than a third of Britons say they have changed social class, with upper-middle and upper-class people most likely to identify as belonging to more than one class, according to a…
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