Long-term decline in number of teachers entering Parliament
House of Commons Library statistics have shown a significant drop in the number of former teachers elected as MPs over the last 20 years.
At the 1997 election 20% of MPs were school, college or university teachers at the time of their election. Yet at the 2015 election that figure had fell to just 5.1%.
The chart below is a visual representation of the data from 1979-2015, with teachers shown as blue. Only Conservative and Labour MPs are included, except for 2015 when the Scottish National Party are also included.
The report, “Social background of Members of Parliament 1979-2017” is available here.