Why Schools Should Prioritise Career Guidance - Now More Than Ever!

What priorities should schools have when it comes to setting up their students to reach their full potential? A strong and varied education system is of course a necessity, but that only covers their development during their schooling years. What happens once they leave secondary education? What can be done, during the years educators have guaranteed jurisdiction over their development, to advance their personal growth? Here at The Careers People we believe that a strong career guidance presence can help establish student success post graduation. But that’s our business, so why, objectively, should schools prioritise career guidance? Let’s break it down together.

NEET Prevention

NEET (16-24 yrs; Not in Education, Employment or Training) young people have always been a concern in the UK education system, but the latest statistics have established them as a part of a crisis. As of March 2025, 12.5% of all people aged 16 - 24 are NEET. That’s an estimated 923,000 young people that don’t have direction. That’s only one stadium short of a million lost souls! But there’s still hope. Recent research has suggested that young people aged 12-18 who engage in career guidance have significantly higher career readiness levels and young people in schools and colleges with the highest quality careers provision are 8% less likely to become NEET, with this reduction reaching 20% for the most disadvantaged schools. This means career guidance can be a game changer for young people who otherwise would not know what to do post graduation.

And this not only benefits students, but also the economy. According to new calculations from the Youth Employment Group (YEG), reducing the number of NEET young people to the same levels as the Netherlands could generate £69 billion in GDP. And research by Frontier Economics shows that for every £1 invested in youth work, society sees a return of £3.50. A 350% return on investment for supporting the country’s young people! A definite win-win situation.

This begs the question, what else can career guidance offer? And how else can it help your students?

Student Empowerment Through Career Knowledge

An integral part of adulthood is accepting responsibility for making your own decisions. This can feel particularly daunting, however, when the choices for these decisions are not clear. Even more so when you don’t even know all the decisions you have to make. Qualified Career Advisors can help inform students of the opportunities out there and guide them through whichever path they choose to conquer. Essentially, career guidance can give students power and control over their future. And it’s not limited to students! Using different platforms, such as an “Ask Me Anything” stand at schools’ parent evenings, Career Advisors can help parents with not only information on their children’s/wards’ next steps, but also with their own career development.

Evening the Playing Field

According to the National Audit Office (NAO), 27% of children in state-funded schools are disadvantaged (defined as children registered for free school meals in the past six years or are currently, or have previously been, looked after by the local authority). For clarity, that’s 2.1 million children. And they generally perform worse than their less disadvantaged counterparts, with only 25% of disadvantaged pupils achieving grade 5 or above in English and maths GCSEs in 2022/23, compared with 52% for those not known to be disadvantaged. These lower grades can make it difficult for these students to gain employment in many traditional career routes. Impetus’ 2019 research report entitled Establishing the Employment Gap shows that 26% of disadvantaged young people are around 50% more likely to be NEET compared to 13% of their similarly qualified but better-off peers. However, as discussed, professional career guidance has been proven by a UK Department for Education report to reduce NEET numbers in disadvantaged schools by up to 20%. This is a great (and obviously impactful) first step to evening the playing field that is the professional world. If you are interested in helping with levelling this playing field, there are a number of charities working to do so including RISE UP, Blueprint for All, The Platform Project, and The 93% Club.

Creating a Generation of Skilled Workers

It is common for students lacking direction to enter the world of work without the relevant or varied skills that many employers look for in entry level jobs. After all, how can you prepare for your future job without knowing what it is? Luckily, good career guidance emphasises what we teach at The Careers People: exploration and extracurriculars. Using their interests and hobbies as a guide, career advisors can narrow down potential careers and outline classes, courses and extracurriculars that will not only be helpful in securing a job in the industry a student is interested in, but can also help them build up their CV with varied experiences and soft skills. This results in graduates with the tools to become gainfully employed in fulfilling careers.

These are all great reasons to invest in career guidance and career programmes in your school, but for more information on how The Careers People can support you and your career programme, visit our main site.