United Kingdom

Artists, directors and actors have raised the alarm about what they describe as a rigged system preventing working-class talent thriving in their industries after analysis showed almost a third of major arts leaders were educated privately.

The creator of Peaky Blinders, Steven Knight, the director Shane Meadows and the Turner prize winner Jesse Darling were among those who spoke to the Guardian about what was described as a crisis facing the sector.

They spoke after a Guardian survey of the 50 organisations that receive the most Arts Council England funding revealed a disproportionate number of leadership roles were occupied by people who were educated privately and those who went to the universities of Oxford or Cambridge.

Almost a third (30%) of artistic directors and other creative leaders were educated privately compared with a national average of 7%. More than a third (36%) of the organisations’ chief executives or other executive directors went to private schools.

The analysis also found that 17.5% of artistic directors and more than a quarter (26%) of chief executives went to Oxford or Cambridge, compared with less than 1% of the general population.

Andy Haldane, the chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, said he was “shocked by that finding but not especially surprised”.