Insee Analyses · July 2026 · n° 122

Among Employed Persons, 3% Were at the Top of the Socio‑Professional Ladder in 2022

In metropolitan France in 2022, 3% of employed persons were at the top of the socio‑professional ladder, defined as the subset of occupations with the highest level of responsibility or expertise in each field. More than one‑third of these executives and high‑level professionals were self‑employed, with a strong overrepresentation of liberal professionals. They were also more often men, older individuals, and more likely to come from privileged backgrounds than the rest of the employed population.

The top of the socio‑professional ladder was concentrated at the upper end of the distribution of earned income, although it was not limited to that segment: 69% of these persons were among the top 10% of employed people in terms of earnings. In 2022, the median earned income for full‑time workers in the “executives and high‑level professionals” category was 76,300 euros per year, or 2.6 times that of the general population. Within this category, disparities were significant, mainly due to a large proportion of self‑employed individuals. The median income for women in full‑time employment in this category was 19% lower than that of men in the same situation.