Javid was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, one of five sons of Pakistani Muslim immigrant parents.[4][5] His father worked as a bus driver.[6] His mother did not speak English, having grown up in a Pakistani village where girls did not go to school.[7] His family moved from Lancashire to Stapleton Road, Bristol, as his parents took over a shop there, and the family lived in a two-bedroom flat above it.[8]
As a teenager, Javid developed an interest in financial markets, following the Thatcher government's privatisations. At the age of fourteen, he borrowed £500 from a bank to invest in shares and became a regular reader of the Financial Times.[8]
From 1981 to 1986, Javid attended Downend School, a state comprehensive near Bristol. At school it was recommended that he should be a TV repairman. Javid has said he was told that he couldn't study maths at O Level so he had to get his father to pay for it.[9] When he later witnessed a video showing an assault on a Syrian refugee, he remarked that it was reminiscent of bullying he had experienced at school;[10] Javid claims he faced racial abuse when younger, being called a 'Paki', and having faced abuse from "National Front skinheads".[11] Speaking in 2014, Javid said that while at school: "I was naughty, more interested in watching Grange Hill than homework".[8] After being told by his school that he could only study two A Levels when he believed he needed three to go to university,[9] Javid subsequently attended Filton Technical College from 1986 to 1988, and finally the University of Exeter from 1988 to 1991.
Javid is a trustee of the London Early Years Foundation, was a governor of Normand Croft Community School, and has led an expedition to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, to show his support of Help the Aged.[12]
