Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control, Third Edition

Segmentation 63

New social class Occupations Examples

1 Higher managerial and professional

occupations

1.1 Employers and managers in larger Bank managers, company directors,

organisations financial managers, senior local government

officers

1.2 High professional Doctors, lawyers, dentists, higher civil

servants, academics, engineers, teachers,

airline pilots, social workers, librarians,

personnel officers, computer analysts

2 Lower managerial and professional Police officers, fire-fighters, prison officers,

occupations nurses, physiotherapists, journalists, actors

and musicians

3 Intermediate occupations Secretaries/PA’s airline flight attendants,

driving instructors, computer operators,

clerical workers, computer engineers, dental

technicians, precision instrument makers

4 Small employers and own account workers

5 Lower supervisory, craft and related Electricians, TV engineers, car mechanics,

occupations train drivers, printers

6 Semi-routine occupations Drivers, hairdressers, bricklayers, plasterers,

welders, cooks, shop assistants, garage

forecourt attendants, supermarket

check-out operators

7 Routine occupations Car park attendants, cleaners, road workers,

refuse collectors, labourers, road sweepers

Figure 4.8
New classes for 2001 UK census (Source: Adapted from Rose and O’Reilly, 1999)

Despite this new classification there are still several problems with
socio-economic approaches to segmentation for marketing managers:

● Social class isn’t an accurate gauge of disposable income. An electri-
cian or a plumber who would be classified as social class C2 may well
have a higher income than a junior manager who would be classified
as social class C1.
● In western societies there has been a major trend towards women
working. Social classification has used the head of household’s occu-
pation to define social class; if both adults are working, defining the
head of household becomes more difficult. Earlier in this chapter we
have also seen that family structures themselves have become more
complicated in the west. The new classification does attempt to
address this issue but ‘How does the new classification help to predict