26 April 2026
Careers sector feedback on DfE market engagement
Following market engagement by the Department of Education (DfE) in March regarding the careers offer for young people (broadly the provision currently delivered by the Careers & Enterprise Company), I held a webinar last week to gather feedback from Careers leaders and careers Advisers working in educational institutions, as well as other interested career development professionals. The webinar was attended by over 100 people, who I would like to thank for their engagement and huge amount of feedback.
As promised, we have shared that feedback with DfE through their survey as part of the market engagement and are publishing it here so it is transparent. While I have tried to cover all the main points raised, many are combined or restated to be most relevant to the exercise the department is conducting.
The key points fed back are as follows:
Context:
Contract:
Personal guidance and careers advisers:
Employers and work experience:
Access for other providers:
Training and resources:
Quality:
Careers Hubs:
Data and feedback:
There is expected to be additional market engagement in June, before a tender is published around mid-August.
Thank you again to everyone who fed in their views at the session or afterwards. We will publish an update on Careers News when the next version is available – likely after the June market engagement.
As promised, we have shared that feedback with DfE through their survey as part of the market engagement and are publishing it here so it is transparent. While I have tried to cover all the main points raised, many are combined or restated to be most relevant to the exercise the department is conducting.
The key points fed back are as follows:
Context:
- Be good to link the context to wider policy such as the industrial strategy and growth areas, green economy, social mobility, etc.
- Would be good to explicitly state specific target groups for support – such as SEND students, care experienced, risk of NEET, etc.
- On partnerships, be good to include the CDI on the list as the professional body for the sector and emphasise working with Ofsted to ensure common understanding and approaches.
Contract:
- Good that there will be longer term funding to give stability. Would recommend a 3+2 rather than 3+1+1 approach. If the contract is working well after three years, extending for 2 years rather than twice annually gives more stability to funding.
Personal guidance and careers advisers:
- Appreciate focus is on careers education but would be good to include a priority about strengthening links to personal guidance and careers adviser work. Highlight the need to support schools and colleges to create a partnership model between the careers leader and careers adviser.
- Some calls for the specification to be widened to include training and recruitment of careers advisers.
Employers and work experience:
- Later on, the specification mentions employer engagement AND work experience, but in the early slides it suggests employer engagement is just for work experience. Important to have broader employer engagement beyond work experience reflected in the priorities.
- Concerns were raised around work experience and the support that would be made available to ensure it is meaningful. While it was good that the specification recognises the ambition of the policy, schools are looking for tangible support with resourcing it. Organisation, safeguarding and transport costs cited as key pinch points.
- Could one of the funding streams be for funding Hub databases of employers and schools, or Hubs employing staff to co-ordinate across an area, carry out safeguarding, etc.?
- The specification could make clear that work experience includes virtual experiences too. Be good for the national provider to create virtual experiences that meet the specification – either for practical use or as exemplars.
- Beyond work experience, it would be good to ensure the support included development of employability skills as well as career management skills.
- Be good for the national provider to build relationships with national employers, as some decisions are not made locally.
Access for other providers:
- It would be good to ensure that all pre-18 education providers can access support from the central contract winner and Hubs. Independent schools have raised the issue that they are unable to access some services, plus we need to make sure ITPs and other providers are able to access the support.
Training and resources:
- Very pleased to see the work on integrating careers into teacher training.
- Request for more practical resources – things that careers leaders can use in school rather than just checklists.
- Tailor resources, training and data gathering for different contexts rather than just schools. E.g. FE, ITPs, PRUs, etc.
- Needs to include a replacement for LMI for All which was a valuable resource and hasn’t been replaced. Good to link to the Skills England development of central LMI but need something available for both national and local LMI.
- Include a focus on school leadership to understand the importance and impact of careers, statutory guidance and the need for resourcing and ongoing training of qualified staff.
- Also raise the understanding in the Hubs of the importance of qualified Careers Leader and Careers Adviser staff, including options to get qualified and ongoing CPD, so they can ensure schools are aware and encourage them to invest.
- Concerns raised that more money will be going to Careers Hubs – who provide support but not direct delivery of careers education or personal guidance – when there isn’t more money going to resources in schools for the delivery of those services. Is the balance right?
Quality:
- Pleased to see clearer reference to ‘promoting’ the Quality in Careers Standard and matrix Standard, as launch and development of Careers Impact Reviews created a lot of confusion as the links and options weren’t explained.
- Would like to see the specification include funding towards Quality in Careers Standard - funding for schools to undertake it or bursaries for completion. This would replace DfE funding that was withdrawn and encourage more schools to gain the award.
Careers Hubs:
- Outcomes focused funding for careers hubs is good. This could also be used to deliver national programmes, with strategy/approach set by the national provider to ensure consistency, then funded delivery by Hubs (or funding flowing through them to schools and colleges) so they can tailor action locally to meet needs. Could be used for programmes tackling NEETs, care experienced, SEND, etc. beyond just careers education and into careers guidance for those groups. Links into working with local government as responsibilities for skills are devolved.
- Linked to that point, Hubs could have trained careers advisers who can provide additional support to schools that need it – maybe as part of funded programmes targeting support.
- Important that Careers Hubs build positive engagement with local Jobs and Careers Service provision.
- Feedback that Hubs have stretched resources already so if there is more requirement on them it must come with greater resourcing.
- The specification could require the national provider to set out a minimum level of support that Careers Hubs must offer to schools, to ensure consistency, then have the flexibility to go beyond that.
- Ensure support is focused on areas of greatest need, not just based on pupil numbers.
- National provider should include training of staff in Hubs to ensure they are able to offer best support.
Data and feedback:
- It would be good for schools and colleges to have a feedback mechanism to share satisfaction with Careers Hub and national provider support.
- It would be good to more explicitly include the voice of the young person and parents.
- Current measurement can feel like ‘reporting’ so no-one wants to say they aren’t delivering. Need tracking that captures delivery data and correlate that to impact from destination data and perceptions of career readiness.
- The national provider should be responsible for a systemic capture of Careers Leader and Careers Adviser resourcing in schools and colleges – data that is currently missing – and identify any link between resourcing levels and impact/outcomes for young people.
- Hubs could collect and collate progression/destination data to correlate to school delivery levels.
- Share data with Career Hubs and local government so they can see the performance of schools in their area.
There is expected to be additional market engagement in June, before a tender is published around mid-August.
Thank you again to everyone who fed in their views at the session or afterwards. We will publish an update on Careers News when the next version is available – likely after the June market engagement.
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