Patterned and Predictable?: Parliamentary Careers in the UK House of Commons, 1979-2010

This paper examines the career patterns of MPs in the UK House of Commons. Whereas previous research (Vannoni & John 2014; Allen 2013) has examined careers from 1997, we take a longer view, drawing on data from the 1979 – 2010 cohorts. There is a large and theoretically informed literature on legislative careers in the United States and ministerial careers in Europe more generally, but less is known about the structure and predictors of parliamentary careers in the UK Parliament. This paper contributes to a small but growing literature in addressing three questions: are there observable patterns or types of parliamentary careers; do patterns vary party; and what exogenous factors predict career trajectory? Drawing on data from the Parliamentary Candidates UK project and the British Constituency Electoral Results we create a 11-point measure to code careers, and using a method new to political science, sequence analysis, we show five types of career patterns common to both Labour and Conservative MPs overtime. Using exogenous socio-demographic and electoral factors to model career trajectory, we show men are more likely to be promoted than women MPs, and similar to Allen (2013) we find that previous occupation is a predictor of career trajectory. Attending Oxbridge is a strong predictor of promotion the highest levels of parliamentary office.