CDI Warns Curriculum Review Misses a Crucial Opportunity

Curriculum Review is a Missed Opportunity to Set Young People on the Right Careers Path 

Stourbridge - 8 November 2025 - The Career Development Institute (CDI), the UK’s professional body for career development, is concerned that the Curriculum Review’s exclusion of careers education from its scope is a missed opportunity to ensure all young people have access to the support they need to make informed decisions about their education, training and career after school. 

The Curriculum Review stated in their final report that careers education and guidance were excluded from their terms of reference as they were focused on the curriculum and assessment. While this may be technically correct, it misses the point that, to be effective for young people, careers education should be part of the curriculum. By making this assumption that careers is out of scope, the review didn’t even consider the merits of ringfencing time to ensure young people have the best start to thinking about their life after school. 

This is an oversight that will leave many young people continuing to receive limited careers support, as the level of provision outside the curriculum across England’s schools is highly variable – and is often worst in areas of disadvantage, where pupils are most in need of support. 

Including careers education in the curriculum could have guaranteed time for all pupils to gain valuable insight and experiences of careers, to help them make the best decision at each stage of their education and career. This is about more than work experience and a meeting with a careers adviser. High quality careers education gives young people an understanding of a wide range of careers, space to reflect on those careers and their own ambitions, and time and support to identify the right pathway for them to take to gain the skills they need. 

Professional careers advice is also valuable for the government, the economy and society. If students make more informed choices about the next step of their education, it can reduce the cost to government of young people dropping out of courses. Being prepared for work and gaining skills that are in demand can help fill workforce gaps and shift the UK’s stagnant productivity, and CDI research shows that people who are happier in their career are happier with their lives. 

David Morgan, chief executive of the CDI, said: 

"It’s a huge missed opportunity for careers to be deemed ‘out of scope.’ Whatever subjects young people study at school, they will all need to have the skills to manage their careers throughout life. We know current provision is highly variable across England’s schools, and adding careers education to the curriculum would have been a step forward in setting some consistency for all pupils. 

“The recommendations to reduce the curriculum and exam burden does potentially create more space in the school timetable, but we already know from feedback across many schools that, without being ringfenced, careers provision is highly variable. The Curriculum Review was an ideal opportunity to address this. 

“The government can still go beyond the recommendations of the Review to embed careers education in the curriculum, and this needs to be done as part of a wider careers strategy that links the careers support available from primary age through to adults in or out of work.”