The collection problem
Every Careers Leader I’ve ever worked with is endlessly resourceful, enthusiastic and oozes ambition for their young people. They are a wonderful melting pot of part educator, part networker, part advocate and part changemaker.
In some circumstances, that resourcefulness can lead to relationships with employers that have accumulated over time like Pokémon cards. Yet a large collection can create an illusion of value, when in fact many of those relationships can be duplicative, underused or disconnected from any wider purpose. And the occasional rare (or shiny, as per this analogy) card, is often the product of an exceptional individual relationship rather than a deliberate strategy.
I don’t come to this as an education consultant. I spent years leading skills and social impact strategy at one of the world’s largest engineering and infrastructure consultancies, and my work on employer-led school governance has since been recognised by the World Economic Forum. That gives me an outsider’s view of the system, and from there this pattern turns up constantly.
I know the quandary for these schools isn’t necessarily about access to opportunity, but rather selectivity – and knowing when more isn’t better.
On the other hand, geographically isolated settings, with less industrial diversity, or less established networks can mean employer relationships are extremely precious. To those Careers Leaders it may feel unthinkable to turn down any offer of support. So, saying yes to everything seems like the only mandate.
The problem is neither of these scenarios tells us whether the school has the employer relationships it actually needs.
And I wonder whether the increasingly ambitious landscape of modern work experience, technical and vocational pathways, growth sectors and social value risks entrenching the problem even further. With each new policy ambition comes another expectation. More touchpoints, more progressive encounters, more evidence of impact. More coordination.
It seems we’re setting increasingly sophisticated ambitions for employer engagement, but we haven’t built equally sophisticated ways of understanding, organising and maximising those relationships. Particularly when the ever-more-bamboozling landscape of skills is more than any one school or employer could reasonably be expected to gulp-down in its entirety.
So, in the absence of a coherent strategy, is the easiest answer always to keep saying yes?
From gratitude to agency
Rather than treating every offer of employer support as a gift to be gratefully received, we need to recognise our employer relationships as a strategic asset. That kind of agency depends on asking a much more fundamental question – what does our school want to be known for? A school surrounded by investment in advanced manufacturing might aspire to become renowned for its design, build, test and prototyping opportunities. Another, sitting within a thriving cyber cluster, might deliberately pursue TechFirst recognition and develop a reputation for exceptional digital learning.
Neither is reacting to whichever employer happens to knock on its door. They're making intentional choices about their educational identity, informed by an understanding of the place around them. And critically, that gives them a much clearer proposition to take to industry, and a reason to be selective about the relationships they cultivate.
Of course, it's not about every school developing a specialism or responding exclusively to the industries on its doorstep. It's about understanding the strengths and ambitions of the school, the needs and aptitudes of its young people, and the direction of the wider economy, then recognising where those ambitions can reinforce one another.
And that's easier said than done.
Schools are experts in education, but we can't reasonably expect teachers and Careers Leaders to be equally fluent in industrial strategy, frontier technologies or the changing economic ambitions of their region. Likewise, employers understand their workforce needs and commercial priorities, but not necessarily how their individual contributions fit into a wider educational and place-based system. The same is true of the people we’ve put in place to bridge the two. Enterprise Coordinators and Careers Link governors do
amazing work, ...but each sees a slice of the system through their own remit or sector. None is set up to see the whole picture of government interventions, policy change and regional ambition, nor should they be expected to. The Yes Epidemic, then, is less a failure of judgement than a symptom of fragmented intelligence.
Which begs the question: who is joining the dots? If we expect every school and employer to make sense of that bigger picture independently, we will simply recreate the fragmentation we're trying to solve.
When goodwill meets the contract
For years, much of employer engagement has relied on a drip-drip of volunteering and goodwill. A couple of hours here, an enthusiastic employee there, and occasionally something rather special when two passionate individuals find each other. None of that should be undervalued, but nor should it be the foundation upon which we expect sustained, scalable and strategically aligned partnerships to flourish.
Which is why the evolving relationship between public procurement, social value and skills presents such an interesting opportunity. PPN 026, with its emphasis on good jobs, skills and talent pipelines, could create stronger incentives for employers delivering relevant public contracts to invest in longer-term, more accountable partnerships with schools.
Yet, contractual commitments don't automatically create coherence either. Without that shared understanding of place, we merely risk replacing a collection of disconnected volunteering activities with a collection of disconnected contractual obligations.
Imagine instead what becomes possible when the needs of young people, the ambitions of a place and the contributions of industry are deliberately brought together. With that shared understanding we can begin to weave a tapestry of opportunity that intentionally runs from careers talks to mentoring, and work experience days to supported internships, with the industrial diversity that makes young people's futures vivid, attainable and desirable.
And whilst not every learner needs the same sequence, and not every employer is equipped to offer every type of activity or depth of commitment, the right complementary ecosystem of partnerships can provide the dexterity and richness to respond to different needs at different stages.
A ‘place’ of shared purpose
How many schools can confidently articulate the collective story of the employer relationships they already have?
It's at this point I usually imagine one wonderfully illustrative infographic that manifests the soup of ideas, conversations, connections and events in a Careers Leader's mind into something tangible. Not simply a prettier picture of who's doing what, but an understanding of how those relationships, the opportunities they create and the economic ambitions of the place fit together - and, crucially, where they don't.
This is where I think education could borrow some of the discipline of key account management - understanding the maturity, contribution and potential of those relationships allows us to uncover different answers. It shows which relationships are flourishing, which have gone dormant, where effort is duplicated and where the gaps are.
That visibility can fundamentally change the conversations we have with employers. Rather than another request for support, we can explore where their expertise, ambitions and resources might make the greatest difference, whilst creating meaningful value for them too.
A household-name employer might look fantastic on a school's partnership map, yet if their contribution amounts to the occasional visit from a well-meaning, but underprepared STEM ambassador, we need to be realistic about how much value that prestigious relationship is actually creating. Meanwhile, a lesser-known business just around the corner might understand the neighbourhood, be actively recruiting local talent and have fewer layers of bureaucracy standing between a good idea and a meaningful opportunity for young people. The second may be worth far more.
And when that understanding is shared, it stops being the school’s private picture and becomes part of the place’s. Teachers can see where their subject connects to local industry and bring it into their lessons, so careers stops being one person’s job. Leaders can build employer relationships into the school improvement plan, and governors can ask sharper questions about whether those relationships serve the school’s priorities. Employers can see where they fit. And Careers Hubs, combined authorities and sector bodies can see where a school’s relationships connect to regional priorities, and where they could help fill the gaps.
What was previously held together through the knowledge and connections of one Careers Leader becomes a collective understanding that others can contribute to and act upon. Shared visibility doesn't just enable better decisions. It creates the conditions for collective ownership.
More than the sum of our schools
For a geographically concentrated multi-academy trust, the opportunity becomes even more interesting. What if one school has an abundance of relationships with a particular industry, while another just a few miles away has none? What if several schools are independently approaching the same employers, unaware of the collective opportunity they could represent?
A shared strategic framework could reveal those imbalances, coordinate partnerships and create greater consistency in the quality and outcomes of careers provision, without insisting every school delivers the same activities.
I've seen early glimpses of this in my work with the Together Trust, a specialist education charity supporting children and young people with complex needs across multiple settings.
I recognised an opportunity when considering two things alongside one another. Greater Manchester has an ambition to grow its digital economy to £7 billion by 2029. Meanwhile, across the Trust there were young people with diverse, often exceptional aptitudes and interests in technology, but with individual settings developing their curriculum provision, employer engagement and industry partnerships largely independently.
Drawing on my work with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), I saw how the TechFirst recognition pathway could offer more than a badge of honour for individual settings. It could provide a shared architecture for continuous improvement, making curriculum strengths, gaps and opportunities more visible across the Trust.
Inscape House achieving Gold and Bridge College achieving Bronze towards the end of the last academic year was never a story about one being better than the other, it was about what they could achieve together. Inscape's experience can now inform Bridge College's development towards Gold, gaps in cyber and technology provision can be addressed collectively, and both settings can make better coordinated use of IN4 Group and its industry partnerships, rather than cultivating those relationships independently.
Perhaps this is where trusts have a unique opportunity to become part of the wiring of a productive local economy. Not merely a collection of schools operating within a place, but a collective educational asset capable of responding to, influencing and contributing to its future.
Creating collective capability
None of this diminishes the extraordinary passion and ingenuity of the Careers Leaders I celebrated at the beginning. But perhaps we've become too comfortable relying on those qualities to hold together relationships that could become an enduring strategic asset for an entire school or trust.
After all, it’s the Careers Leader's personality that opens doors. But a coherent strategy ensures those doors lead somewhere.
In looking at the challenge in this way, we’re not trying to replace organic relationships with rigid processes. Some of the best partnerships will always emerge through human connection and unexpected conversations. But we can create a system that recognises, nurtures and builds upon those opportunities, giving others the understanding and agency to develop them further.
Ultimately, the ambition isn't to take the personality out of employer engagement. It's to make sure the value of those relationships reaches further than the individual who created them, and further than the school where they began.
Jess Bates is the founder of Kommon Ground, an independent strategic advisory practice working at the intersection of skills, systems and place. Previously the UK & Ireland Skills, Employment and Education Lead at AtkinsRéalis, she is now Co-Chair of Greater Manchester's Cornerstone Employer Board and a member of the CEC Employer Board. Her experience spans industry, education, public policy and social impact.