The demographic makeup of Andy Burnham’s first cabinet – in charts

Women have half the seats at the top table for the first time, but Oxbridge maintains its grip Andy Burnham has appointed the first cabinet of his premiership. Much has been made of how key allies of his predecessor, Keir Starmer, have been demoted or sacked, but what is the demographic makeup of the new team of senior ministers, and how does it differ from other governments?

Composite: Prina Shah/The Guardian/Zuma/Shutterstock View image in fullscreen Andy Burnham has given an outsized number of jobs to politicians from north-west England. Composite: Prina Shah/The Guardian/Zuma/Shutterstock Explainer The demographic makeup of Andy Burnham’s first cabinet – in charts Women have half the seats at the top table for the first time, but Oxbridge maintains its grip Andy Burnham has appointed the first cabinet of his premiership.

For the first time in British political history, half of the cabinet is female, a huge change from the situation less than 50 years ago. When Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, she did not appoint a single other woman to the cabinet. Under her successor, John Major, there was even a period when there were no women in any of the top jobs.

Tony Blair began to tilt the balance the other way, but even in the era of “Blair’s babes” women remained a minority around the cabinet table. Blair’s first cabinet in 1997 included five. The trend was reversed by his successor, Gordon Brown, and the gender gap oscillated during the Conservatives’ 14 years in power.

Parity was nearly achieved in 2024 when Starmer appointed his first ministerial team. Cabinet, including those who attended but were not full members, was made up of 46% women. Parity was finally achieved this week with Burnham’s new appointments – though some Starmerites point out that the replacement of Rachel Reeves with John Healey as chancellor means one fewer woman in the four great offices of state.

It is little surprise that Burnham, the former Greater Manchester mayor and “King of the North”, has given an outsized number of cabinet posts to MPs representing seats from the north-west. Politicians from that region, which has been Burnham’s power base for several years, make up just over a quarter of the cabinet – but only 11% of the UK population live there. The north-west was already overrepresented under Starmer, in contrast with Rishi Sunak’s cabinet, which contained only two MPs with constituencies in the north – one of whom was Sunak himself.

At one point under Starmer, not a single full cabinet minister had attended private school for most of their secondary education. The historically high levels of state education caused Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, to call Starmer’s team in opposition “probably one of the most class-conscious shadow cabinets that we’ve had for some time”