The Education Act of 2011 established the statutory duty to ensure that all young people – under 19 – in England have “access to careers guidance” support.
Before the 2011 Act, the statutory duty was placed upon the Secretary of State to ensure that a ‘Careers Service’ was available in all parts of England for all young people (primarily aged 13-18). The Careers Service was provided from 1974-1994 by Local Education Authorities; from 1994-2001 by contracted careers companies/other providers under contract to the Secretary of State; and from 2001-2012 by Connexions Partnerships/Local Authority Connexions Services as part of their wider youth support service functions.
“Careers guidance provided to pupils at a school is independent for the purposes of this section if it is provided other than by:
(A) A Teacher Employed Or Engaged At The School
(B) Any Other Person Employed At The School”
The Act, therefore, requires secondary schools to be commissioners of careers guidance, not providers of it – that’s not to say they will not provide much of it, but their statutory duty is to secure external careers guidance in addition to whatever a school provides internally.
It’s worth reminding ourselves what the OECD definition of ‘careers guidance’ covers, as this is referred to by the Department for Education in its guidance on what the statutory duty includes:
“Career guidance refers to services and activities intended to assist individuals,
of any age and at any point throughout their lives,
to make educational, training and occupational choices
and to manage their careers.
The activities may take place on an individual or group basis,
and may be face-to-face
or at a distance (including helplines and web-based services).”
(OECD, 2004)
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In May 2025, the Department for Education updated its Statutory Guidance to schools on fulfilling their statutory duty and its guidance to FE Colleges: Careers guidance and access for education and training providers (publishing.service.gov.uk)
The DfE Guidance builds heavily upon the updated Gatsby Benchmarks for “Good Careers Guidance”. The Guidance also “strongly recommends” all secondary schools and colleges to work towards and achieve the national Quality in Careers Standard.
The DfE Guidance includes the following section about Quality in Careers:
| “We strongly recommend that all schools and colleges work towards the national Quality in Careers Standard to support the development of their careers programme. This external assessment allows independent judgement of the quality of careers provision, including its impact upon learners’ career-related learning.
Schools and colleges can gain formal accreditation of their careers programme through the Quality in Careers Standard – the national quality award for all aspects of careers education and guidance. The Standard is owned by the Quality in Careers Consortium which involves the major professional associations of school and college leaders alongside the Career Development Institute (CDI) and Careers England. The Standard is fully aligned with the updated Gatsby Benchmarks. The Standard is externally assessed by one of the Licensed Awarding Bodies, appointed by the Consortium. A key part of an assessor’s evidence gathering is ‘learner voice’ – the impact the careers programme has on learners’ career-related learning – with evidence from independent detailed analysis showing that schools and colleges achieving the Standard have higher Gatsby Benchmark performance.”
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More details on how the national assessment criteria for Quality in Careers fully incorporate the revised DfE Guidance, the updated Gatsby Benchmarks and the Compass self-assessment tool are set out in our updated Guide to the Standard and in our Assessment Guide. The revised national assessment criteria will be implemented for all Accreditations from September 2025.
Our Consortium commends to every Head Teacher/College Principal and secondary school/college governing body our belief that the statutory duty placed on secondary schools and colleges to secure independent careers guidance for pupils and students will be most effective when these three elements coexist in a school or college:
- Its overall careers education and guidance programme is quality assured against the Quality in Careers Standard.
- The school/college builds upon its internal programme by securing specialist careers advice and guidance services from an external provider, close to the labour market, able to assist young people in making informed choices; such a provider should meet the accepted ‘industry standard’ for organisations providing advice and guidance on learning and work, the ‘matrix Standard’.
- The externally secured provider of careers guidance should employ professional careers advisers who are occupationally competent to professional standards as determined by the Career Development Institute. Please also see this Guidance Note on personal careers guidance.
We’ve consistently advocated this three-pronged approach to assure the quality of careers education and guidance for every young person in England, incorporating accreditation under the Quality in Careers Standard.
Our website also provides a series of Case Studies showing how some of the good schools and colleges in the country are responding to their duty to ‘secure access to independent careers guidance’ for their pupils and students.
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April 2025 headline figures of schools and colleges engaged with the Standard:
At the start of April 2025, the figures were:
- 619 schools and colleges held the award, 538 of which the Careers and Enterprise Company was able to match with its “Compass” data to compare Gatsby Benchmark performance.
- A further 241 schools and colleges were actively “working towards” assessment in 2025.
So, at the start of April 2025, there were 860 schools and colleges actively engaged with the national Standard.
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Evidence of the added value and impact of achieving the Standard:
This analysis by the Careers & Enterprise Company in January 2025 of the “Compass” scores for the schools and colleges holding the Standard showed:
- The average number of Gatsby Benchmarks fully achieved by Quality in Careers Award Holders in 2023/24 has increased to 6.5 compared with 6.1 in 2023 and 5.6 in the analysis of 2022 Award Holders.
- The average for all schools and colleges completing Compass was 5.8 in 2023/24, 5.5 in 2023, compared with 4.9 in 2022.
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