New evidence shows big increase in careers advisers working in education

Evidence published by the Institute of Employment Studies (IES) and funded by Gatsby explores the number of careers advisers in England.

Comparing Census data from 2021 with 2011, this examination of the careers adviser workforce found:

• The number of careers advisers working in secondary and further education nearly doubled to 3,200. This indicates the significant impact of the advent of the Gatsby Benchmarks, with clear expectations for careers advice sessions (personal guidance) as part of compulsory education. These careers advisers were also more highly qualified and more likely to be working full time than before.
• Numbers of careers advisers working with adults, across a variety of settings, dropped significantly, reflecting significant changes to the national offer during the time period, including the founding of the National Careers Service.
• A large drop in young, part-time, Level 3 qualified careers advisers working in higher education (HE) in 2021. This is likely to indicate significant disruption to HE students working for their careers department, due to the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic at the time.

Delivery of the Gatsby Benchmarks and a strong careers guidance offer for adults is dependent on a buoyant, well-trained and distributed workforce of qualified careers advisers.

These findings are a valuable update to Gatsby’s previous research with IES from 2020, which used the Labour Force Survey and other datasets to make up for the decade-long gap between Censuses.

We are interested in exploring this data further, including examining the workforce who support adults in more detail.

The full report is available here. If you would like to discuss the findings, please email robert.cremona@gatsby.org.uk.