In 2026, only one in three people aged 18 to 25 in the UK had access to a human careers adviser at school or college. And if you are from a lower socio-economic background, that gap is even worse.
Which is unfair, because careers advice at home is a bit of a lottery. Not everyone has a mum who works in tech or a dad in professional services to help pave the way. If the people around you work in only a handful of fields, that is all you know exists, and your options are narrowed before you have even started.
But access is only part of the problem. As someone who has actually sat in front of school careers advisers, I can tell you the advice itself needs work too.
Two Appointments And Still No Clue
The first time I saw a careers adviser was in sixth form. Everyone around me was planning their next step (gap years, university applications, the lot), while I was stuck. A teacher suggested I book a careers appointment, so I did.
There was one adviser for the whole school, so it took a while to get a slot.
To sum up that fifteen-minute conversation, I was basically given advice on what degree to study. Which would have been great, if this was a university consultation instead of a careers meeting. There were no talks about different jobs, industries, or even options outside of university.
Left to figure it out myself, I decided to go to university and study Engineering Mathematics (not Natural Sciences as was suggested), because I liked how varied the modules were while still tying back to maths (I got to model the hippocampus in the brain using maths, how cool is that!). But as great as the degree is, there is no such job as an Engineering Mathematician. Unlike someone studying accountancy, law, medicine or teaching, I had a degree with no clear path attached to it.
Which is how I ended up in front of a careers adviser. For the second time.
This time the focus was CVs and interview prep, which would have been great if I had known my career path. But I did not.
The first adviser helped with the step before the decision: what to study. The second helped with the step after it: how to land the job. Neither touched the decision itself, what I actually wanted to do. And that is where the problem with careers guidance lies.
What Actually Helped
I am a year out from graduating, and still not 100% sure what I want to do. But I have learnt a lot of good careers advice, outside an official appointment. From reading job descriptions to working out which parts of my modules I liked. It took a lot of trial and error, but these are the things I found most useful:
Attending careers talks at university
My university hosts a lot of talks where alumni share what they have been doing since graduating. At one, someone talked about becoming a commodities trader; at another, someone explained how they had become an actuary. It is a great way to stumble across careers you would never have considered, even if half the time you come away certain it is a path you would never want to take.
Joining social mobility programmes
When I told my sister about my degree crisis, she pointed me towards Zero Gravity, a social mobility platform that connects students from low-income backgrounds with mentors and resources to help them into university and, later, careers. I first used it to explore my university options and find out what the course, and student life, were actually like beyond the prospectus.
More recently I matched with a patent attorney and spent a couple of months learning about the role. In the end I decided it was not for me (which is just as useful to know).
Gaining exposure and meeting people
In 2025 I landed an internship at Taught by Humans as a Data Content Developer. That one job gave me more insight into the working world than five years of school ever did. Not because of the work itself (though I loved it) but because of who it put me in a room with.
People building things across Bristol's tech scene. People with job titles and roles in sectors I never knew existed (who knew Barclays had an innovation team?).
Even casual conversations with my boss, Laura, taught me more than any formal careers appointment ever had.
Every interaction opened a door I did not know was there. Which is the problem, is it not? You cannot want a career you do not know exists.
Good News
The good news is, the government seems to realise that careers guidance at schools needs improvement. These are a couple of things from the updated guide that I am most looking forward to:
Careers guidance for every student
From my experience, you had to go and seek the adviser out. Now schools have to make sure careers guidance is provided to every student throughout secondary school, not just the ones who think to ask. Even better, Ofsted now inspects how well schools actually deliver it. So hopefully it will be better than the fifteen-minute conversation I got.
Guidance has to be impartial
University was the only option presented to me. Now schools have to give all the options (e.g. apprenticeships and technical routes) equal weight. Hopefully that means students get an actual careers conversation, not a which-degree-should-I-do one.
Students will get real work experience
What helped my career discovery most was exposure (and unfortunately it is the hardest to get without connections). The good news is that under the new guidelines, schools will give every student a meaningful encounter with an employer every year from age 11. On top of that, students will get multiple work experiences by the time they are 16. Not only do they get early exposure to a range of different jobs, they will also build up a bank of experience to draw on later.
More Than Just Luck
Looking back, what strikes me is how little of this I actually controlled. A sister who pointed me the right way, an internship that happened to come up, a university that happened to run these talks. I was lucky. But, good careers guidance should not come down to connections and luck, because the people without them are the ones left behind.
That is why schools need to step up. School is the place that can reach the most people.
And as good as the announcement sounds on paper, it will only make a difference if schools actually deliver it. More importantly, if they deliver it to the students who need it most. It is too early to say whether it will close that one-in-three gap. But it is a promising start.