Oxbridge loses its dominance in the City

A degree from Oxbridge is no longer the sure-fire route to a coveted job in business, the results of a survey published today suggest.

The survey of the chief executive officers of the FTSE's leading 100 companies shows that only 23 per cent have degrees from Oxford or Cambridge – compared with 59 per cent when a similar survey was run 18 years ago.

The number of chief executives educated overseas has shot up from 3 to 29 per cent and those from redbrick universities from 16 to 25 per cent.

The survey was compiled for Inspirational Development Coaching, an executive coaching company. It concludes that other universities are achieving a similar status to Oxford and Cambridge.

"The decline of Oxbridge-educated CEOs indicates that attending a top university in the UK is no longer as significant in the educational background of a CEO, possibly due to the nature of the vocational or business-based degrees on their curriculum.

"The increase in numbers attending other UK institutions could indicate that other universities are now achieving a status similar to that of Oxford and Cambridge," the survey says.

Universities attended by chief executives include Imperial, Queen Mary and University College in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Aston, Leeds, Liverpool, Loughborough, Sheffield, St Andrews, University College Wales and Queen's University Belfast.

Of those who were educated overseas, 13 per cent were from the United States and 10 per cent from the Continent.

The survey also shows that the world of business is still dominated by men. In 1984, every chief executive was male – today the figure is 99 per cent. However, 80 per cent of companies now have at least one woman on the board – compared with just 5 per cent in the previous survey.