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The Gatsby Benchmarks have been updated for 2024 and beyond.

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A guide toGatsby Benchmark 2

Learning from career and labour market information

Summary:

Every pupil, and their parents, should have access to good-quality information about future study options and labour market opportunities. They will need the support of an informed adviser to make best use of available information.

Benchmark 2 criteria for schools

  • By the age of 14, all pupils should have accessed and used information about career paths and the labour market to inform their own decisions on study options.
  • Parents should be encouraged to access and use information about labour markets and future study options to inform their support to their children.

Summary:

Every learner, and their parents (where appropriate), should have access to good quality information about future study options and labour market opportunities. They will need the support of an informed adviser to make best use of available information.

Benchmark 2 criteria for colleges

  • During their study programme, all learners should access and use information about career paths and the labour market to inform their own decisions on study options.
  • Parents should be encouraged to access and use information about labour markets and future study options to inform their support to the learners in their care.

Supporting students with good-quality research

Finding reliable information about the local and national labour market is vital to inform good-quality information about jobs and career paths. Access to up-to-date career and labour market information (LMI) is also important for social mobility. If pupils and their parents know what pay you get for different jobs and where and how numerous the vacancies are, they are in a better position to make informed choices about future study and training.

Interpreting labour market information can be overwhelming, so one top tip is to ask students for areas of interest and concentrate on these industries. At Northumberland Church of England Academy trips were organised to local industries that the students picked. In this case the automotive industry was of interest. The school presented LMI in a way that was engaging for students, giving them the opportunity to find out about the state of the industry today and in the future. This left students more equipped to understand the potential challenges within the industry, ask more relevant questions of employers and come to an informed decision about their future career choices.

Organisations such as the Local Authority, Chambers of Commerce and Local Enterprise Partnerships can be particularly useful as they are skilled at accessing and interpreting local LMI. They can help you identify industries that are growing or sectors that have good prospects that your students may not have considered.

Ryan Gibson, former National Facilitator for the Gatsby Benchmarks 2015-17 Pilot

At Bishop Auckland College, the careers team ensured all students engaged with LMI by organising large scale education lessons for up to 50 students at a time. They researched high-growth industries in the North East and disseminated information to the students on different vacancies, specific roles and what different sectors might look like in the future. For example, the energy sector is going to be a key source of jobs in the future – something many students had not considered before the LMI was presented to them.

LMI should also be integrated into normal curriculum lessons. Park View School built a central database filled with people who could be brought in by staff to provide LMI for the curriculum. The database contained details of school alumni, parents and carers, contacts made through Future First and Inspiring the Future, and individuals from industry who had worked with the school in the past. The database gives them easy access to lesson resources from real people who are currently in that industry.

Use the destination data of alumni combined with LMI to better understand whether the curriculum is producing positive destinations for your students.

Careers Leaders at Park View School

You can track whether your students are going to college or university, securing apprenticeship or progressing into employment. You can also analyse whether students are progressing into growing or declining industries and whether they felt prepared for the world of work.

Careers Leader and Assistant Headteacher at The King Edward VI School, Northumberland

Read your local economic plan documents produced by the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and/or the local authority to understand the local area yourself. At Bishop Auckland College students, lecturers and impartial careers advisers felt better equipped to ask useful and relevant questions of employers when they met them at future events such as career fairs. This resulted in much more positive feedback from employers, staff and students.

Careers Leader at Bishop Auckland College


Online information services are being used both to provide access to career and labour market information and to help to personalise this information. Services which have been cited by schools and colleges for this purpose included: Kudos, National Careers Service, National Apprenticeship Service, UCAS, U-explore and Unifrog.

Careers Leader at Berwick Academy

Jump to Benchmark

Benchmark 1

A stable careers programme

Benchmark 2

Learning from career and labour market information

Benchmark 3

Addressing the needs of each pupil

Benchmark 4

Linking curriculum learning to careers

Benchmark 5

Encounters with employers and employees

Benchmark 6

Experiences of workplaces

Benchmark 7

Encounters with further and higher education

Benchmark 8

Personal guidance

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Advice for SEND

Good career guidance ensures that all young people, whatever their needs, background or ambitions, know the options open to them and can make the informed choices needed to fulfil their potential. This is particularly important for the more than one million young people in England recognised as having SEND. Far too often, these young people can be held back by negative stereotypes and assumptions about their limitations.

Find out more about SEND provision

Publications

Good Career Guidance: Reaching the Gatsby Benchmarks handbook (2017)

Good Career Guidance: Appendices (2014)

Good Career Guidance: Benchmarks for Schools (2014)

Good Career Guidance: Benchmarks for Young People in Colleges (2014)

Good Career Guidance: Perspectives from the SEND sector (2019)

Good Career Guidance report (2014)