Quality in Careers award holders and Compass. Analysis DECEMBER 2025
The Quality in Careers Consortium provided the Careers & Enterprise Company with details of 695 schools and colleges holding the national Quality in Careers Standard at the end of September 2025.
This enabled the Careers & Enterprise Company to match (via Unique Reference Numbers) the Compass data held for 578 State schools and colleges across England which had achieved the Standard – and to compare them with the full cohort of state-funded institutions nationwide.
The headline outcome shows that:
- Education institutions accredited under the Quality in Careers Standard in England achieved an average of 6.6 Gatsby Benchmarks in 2024/25. This is 0.1 benchmarks higher than the previous year.
- The average number of benchmarks achieved by all state-funded schools & colleges in England is 6.0 benchmarks, which is 0.2 benchmarks higher than the previous year.
Publishing the analysis today (11th December 2025), the Chair of the Quality in Careers Consortium Board – Paul Chubb – said:
“The analysis demonstrates the evidence of the outcomes achieved when schools and colleges follow the DfE’s “strong recommendation” and work towards and achieve the national Quality in Careers Standard.
By doing so, the clear evidence once more is that schools and colleges increase their achievement in respect of the Gatsby Benchmarks – again achieving the highest Compass scores in the country and therefore providing better careers education and guidance for their pupils and students.
We’re especially pleased to see the growth in the national average number of benchmarks being achieved, and with Quality in Careers Award Holders continuing to be at the ‘leading edge’ of these improvements, we commend this analysis to all school and college leaders.”