Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what action they are taking to ensure that young people have access to careers advice.

This government wants young people in all parts of the country to gain workplace skills and to explore career opportunities. In 2024/25, the department is investing approximately £30 million through The Careers and Enterprise Company to support secondary schools and colleges to improve their careers programmes in line with the government’s careers framework, the Gatsby Benchmarks of Good Career Guidance.

92% of secondary schools and colleges are part of a local Careers Hub that connects educators to employers and apprenticeship providers to improve practice and target support to local priorities. There are over 3,200 fully trained Careers Leaders who implement, coordinate and quality assure careers programmes. Over 400 leading businesses and 4,000 business professionals from across all sectors help schools and colleges to deliver high-quality careers education.

Advice is also available to young people digitally via the National Careers Service. The website helps young people, aged 13 to 18, start discovering their careers options. It includes around 800 job profiles. Young people can access information and advice via webchat and a telephone helpline which is supported by local community-based career advisers. The National Careers Service website can be found here: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/.

This is supported by the Skills for Life campaign, ‘It all starts with skills’, which promotes a range of priority skills programmes to young people, including apprenticeships, T Levels and Higher Technical Qualifications. Bespoke support is also provided during the exam results period. Get Help with Exam Results Careers Advice will be available from 15 to 31 August.

The government wants to go further to break down barriers to opportunity and give all young people the best life chances. According to a report from the Children’s Commissioner, more than 1 in 3 children report that they do not know enough about good jobs available to them as they get older and leave school.

The department will open the doors to more employers by delivering two weeks-worth of high-quality work experience. This year, the department is piloting new approaches to workplace experiences that will benefit more than 25,000 young people across the country. The three models being tested are virtual workplace experiences for schools in coastal and rural communities; breaking down barriers to high quality workplace experiences for disadvantaged young people; and targeted workplace experiences focused on roles in future growth sectors.

Young people need support to capitalise on these workplace experiences, reflect on what they have learned and set future career goals. The department will train 1,000 careers advisers so that young people can get the expert advice they need.

This government will work closely with schools, colleges, employers and careers advisers to make sure all of our young people can achieve and thrive.