Lee Elliot Major

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Lee Elliot Major OBE is a Professor of Social Mobility at the University of Exeter and the UK’s first professor in this field. He wants to help disadvantaged young people improve their life chances. He grew up in Feltham, west London, lived on social security after his parents split up, did a summer job as a dustman, and studied at Isleworth and Syon School and Richmond upon Thames College. He earned a BSc in physics and a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Sheffield, and an MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College London in 1994.

Major has written several books about social mobility with colleagues Stephen Machin and Steve Higgins, including Social Mobility and Its Enemies (2018) and What Works? (2019). In a 2019 TEDx talk he spoke about an escalating arms race of education that leaves the poorest children ill-equipped, and he said COVID-19 could widen inequality unless action is taken. He has worked as an education journalist, led policy at the Wellcome Trust, and was the Sutton Trust’s first Chief Executive (2014). He was a trustee of the Education Endowment Foundation (2011–2019) and is a professor of practice at Exeter. He advocates evidence-based teaching and has proposed a National Tutoring Service to help schools. He has many roles at universities and other bodies and was awarded an OBE in 2019 for services to social mobility; he also received an honorary doctorate from the University of Sheffield in 2017.