This is the UK, where the upper class is more hereditary than job based unlike in the US. Banking and law are fairly common professions for the upper class, so he may well be upper class.
Nitpick: being the son of an investment banker (not a retail banker; there is a big difference) and a lawyer (barrister in the UK) likely places this family in the top 1% of income earners in the UK. By most people's definitions, that qualifies their family as "upper class".
I think it does. Less than 20% of Americans make over 100k per year.
Entry level in IB makes 70+ min. After a graduate degree we are talking 100 to 300k per year. By the time that person has had kids, especially a nine year old they are probably making 500k min. I don't know British IB salaries, but I imagine they are as high.
Law could be anywhere from 50k to 1mm so it really depends.
You (and the grandparent) are misapplying the American conception of class (money) to a Briton. It's about birth and schooling here - money is irrelevant. The boy seems likely to be middle class. (Upper class means a member of the aristocracy in the UK, FWIW).
Yes, there are "several definitions" (as there are with most terms), but I'm talking about the normal and popular one - the one you'll find in contemporary and historical literature and on Wikipedia, etc. Here's wikipedia:
> The British "upper class" is statistically very small and consists of the peerage, gentry, and hereditary landowners. These people were traditionally the wealthiest in the land having inherited money and position. The majority of aristocratic families originated in the merchant class, and were ennobled between the 14th and 19th century.
Just as an aside - public schools like Eton were originally exclusively for the middle class (aristocrat children would have been privately tutored) and though since 1900 they have expanded in class terms to accommodate the Upper Classes (obviously including the Royal Family) there's no way a middle class person would feel out of place there.
