Introduction

This chapter focuses on intersections of class and gender in the making of graduate careers in the finance sector. Finance is an industry perhaps best epitomizing hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1995, 2000), where manhood is measured by financial success, and where both working and playing hard are de rigueur (Ingram and Waller, 2015). Working for a top City investment bank, in particular, is understood as a marker of aggressively achieved, hardwon financial success and masculine prowess. Graduate positions are fiercely competitive, one of the keenest examples of what Brown and colleagues have called ‘the global war for talent’ (Brown and Tannock, 2009; Brown et al, 2011).

Recruitment to elite graduate positions in such sectors as finance has increasingly focused on those from a small number of top-ranking universities (Wakeling and Savage, 2015), and the globalized nature of the neoliberal economic system has contributed to this trend (Brown et al, 2020), with ‘blue chip’ companies now recruiting from a global pool of talented graduates. This pattern of recruitment is a feature of the UK's financial services sector, particularly the City of London, following the ‘Big Bang’ financial deregulation in 1986 that allowed the electronic trading of stocks and shares, and that pushed London's financial status into a truly international world leader, rivalled only by New York.

The predominance of men in top jobs in the sector is documented in numerous reports (Metcalf and Rolfe, 2009; McDowell, 2011; Longlands, 2020; STEM Women, 2021). These highlight that despite the fact that women make up 43 per cent of the workforce in the financial services sector, they are significantly under-represented in leadership positions (STEM Women, 2021). This chapter focuses on what enables men to succeed and explores how male advantage in gaining access to high-status jobs in the sector is mediated by intersections with social class, benefiting those from middle-class backgrounds. The chapter focuses on three young male white graduates, all of whom pursued careers in finance. Nathan, who is white and from a securely middle-class background, completed a degree in law at the UoB. Harvey and Leo, both white and from a working-class background, studied economics (Harvey at the high-ranking UoB; Leo at UWE, a successful modern university).