Guys and girls,
I wouldn't be too upset as Socio-economic groups don't really have any meaning on how well respected any particular profession may be. In this case it's a government study which means that some idiot wrote a cheque for 10 million pounds to one of the many companies which specialise in producing such studies for consumer companies and advertisers. Said company would then have taken a study already done for someone else and changed the line 'dear mr CEO of moulinex food mixers' to 'dear mr whitehall mandarin' while also promoting govt. officals from group 8 to group 1.
Grouping is normally done on a points basis like 'do you own a video recorder ?' if yes then +6 points, so if you own 3 video recorders, 4 tvs, a dishwasher and a food mixer you'll be in a fairly high group. Trying to class whole professions is clearly futile and normally pointless. For example, makers of high end sunglasses clearly know that people in aviation will pay €250 for a pair of sunglasses in the same way that people who make stethoscopes know, if they want to stay in business, that their most likely customers are the medical profession.
Just to illustrate the point take "catering manager" from group one in the study. This is the manager of your local McDonalds or Burger King. Working in McDonalds is probably a hard job but cannot be compared to being the Commander of Boeing 747 responsible for the lives of 400 people. Maybe catering managers buy a lot of video recorders....
The other thing which makes this study b*llocks is there's no differential between different types of pilots, apparently you are just "pilots" Though a 25 year old Flt Lt flying tornadoes in the RAF is actually in group one though because he's also a military officer. Clearly it's rubbish...
So to conclude guys.... if you want to be in a higher group get down to your local electrical store and buy a few VCRs, dishwashers and foodmixers
