NRS social grade

The NRS social grades are a system of demographic classification used in the United Kingdom. They were originally developed by the National Readership Survey (NRS) to classify readers, but have since been used by many other organisations for wider applications and have become a standard for market research.[1] They were developed in the late 1950s and refined in following years and achieved widespread usage in 20th century Britain. Their definition is maintained by the Market Research Society.[2]

According to Ipsos, NRS social grade is not the same as social class.[3] The distinguishing feature of the NRS social grade is that it is based on occupation, rather than income, wealth or property ownership.

  1. ^ Wilmshurst, J. & MacKay, A., The Fundamentals of Advertising, (1999)
  2. ^ Occupation groupings: a job dictionary. Market Research Society Archived 29 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine, London, 2006.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).