social climber 
noun derogatory
A person who is anxious to gain a higher social status.But an unprecedented study into class mobility, revealed today by Scotland on Sunday, suggests the boom days are over for social climbers....
- The fashion and political worlds are better represented these days, and there are plenty of tourists, paparazzi and social climbers.
- Shakespeare's father, John was a social climber who spent years lobbying for a coat of arms, and a sometime loan shark, whose usury saw him dragged into court at least once, according to surviving records.
Derivatives
social climbing
- Yet for all the social climbing and craving for acceptance, there were times when Archer showed genuine humility.
- Was love more important than wealth or did romance take a back seat to social climbing?
- A culture of social climbing and grandiose political gestures was expressed visually in the decoration of domestic space with elaborate painted wall schemes, bronze and marble sculpture, and extravagant minor arts.