‘White van man' myth busted as third privately educated
A third of 'white van men' are privately educated or went to grammar school, research shows.
New figures show that the stereotypical working-class tradesman has been displaced by a new wave of middle-class, university graduates.
Research carried out by Mercedes-Benz Vans found that 33 per cent of van drivers under the age of 35 went to private school.
And just under half of that van-driving age group now hold foundation, bachelor's or master's degrees.
In 1995, around the time the press popularised the phrase 'white van man' to describe the stereotypical travelling tradesman, that figure was closer to 12 per cent.
Just under half (48.5 per cent) of the UK workforce as a whole had a degree or equivalent qualification at the end of 2020, according to Universities UK.
Sneering at the white van man has previously left politicians in peril.
Dame Emily Thornberry, the Labour MP, posted a photograph on X of a terraced property in Medway, Kent, with a white van in the driveway and two England flags hanging from the windows, during her 2014 Rochester and Strood by-election campaign.
She offered her resignation the next day after critics said that the caption 'Image from Rochester' was a snobbery-ridden slight on the white van man.
Government data from around the same time suggested that even the road-rage-ridden stereotype associated with the white van man was untrue. One in every 261 vans was involved in an accident on Britain's roads in 2012, compared with one in 146 cars.
There are just over 248,000 people who gave their main occupation as van driver or courier in the 2021 census, of which more than 222,000 were male. These figures, however, do not capture tradesmen who drive themselves from job to job.
A 2023 survey by Mercedes-Benz Vans, however, claimed that 43 per cent of van drivers in the UK are women.
Jemima, a female casting director who drives a van, said at the time that she was '100 per cent' aware of the white van man stereotype but said 'it made me want to drive even more'.
'We experience it all the time as we drive, too. A white van man will pull up next to us thinking it's a guy and they're so shocked when they see it's a girl at the front,' she said.
The most-recent survey canvassed 500 people.
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