Strongest evidence yet that highest quality careers provision leads to increased career readiness amongst young people.

What have we found out?

Thanks to the incredible growth in the number of young people completing the Future Skills Questionnaire across England, now over 230,000, we can see more evidence of the impact of careers education. 

First, we established a link between achieving the Gatsby Benchmarks (standards of world class careers education) and students who say they are "career ready" (those who respond positively to questions on knowledge, skills and confidence).

Then, we were able to see that students who are career ready make more informed choices. Their industry interests were less stereotyped (for instance, less gender-biased) and more likely to be aligned with the labour market: girls were twice as likely to choose engineering. 
This year, for the first time, we have over 15,000 students who have completed the questions for two consecutive years – enough to see whether they answer more positively over time in a school that has better careers provision (achieves more Gatsby Benchmarks).  The answer is a resounding yes! Students in a school fully achieving 8 benchmarks made a 2.1%pt faster gain in career readiness and a 1.9%pt improvement in essential workplace skills from 2022/23 to 2023/24 than in a school with the equivalent of 1 benchmark.

Why is this so significant?

Well, it strengthens evidence which demonstrates the causal link between great careers education and the impact it has on the same students over time.

For the more technically minded, that means the analysis controls for a range of background factors that might also influence career readiness and essential skills – like family background, school leadership, or even the characteristics of your local neighbourhood. In other words, we can be more confident than before that it’s the quality of the careers education that’s making the difference for these students.  

Every benchmark achieved is making a difference; careers education is working!

And there’s more to come. Last year, on the 10 year anniversary of the framework, the Gatsby Foundation updated their benchmarks. The effect of this will be to raise the bar across the careers system and close any gaps for students who need more support. For our part at CEC, we are busy aligning benchmark assessment tools to these updates. It’s an exciting time for the careers system, raising standards and also giving us deeper insight into what works.

Our growing data sets over time, which span education, employers and young people, are helping to illuminate the true value of carers education, which is now becoming much clearer. And this is testament to the work of Careers Leaders, Careers Hubs and – ultimately – thousands of young people for engaging positively, thinking hard about their futures and completing the survey.