About CareerGuide
Shaping futures, building bridges
Our mission
Every young person deserves the chance to explore careers, gain confidence, and experience the workplace before making big life decisions. At the same time, schools need support meeting career benchmarks, and businesses need early careers strategies that actually deliver.
CareerGuide exists to bridge those gaps — aligning education and employment, reducing youth unemployment, and preparing the future workforce. By helping young people build skills and confidence, we support employers in strengthening talent pipelines, giving them access to better-prepared candidates and helping them meet strategic workforce needs.
How We Work
Simple focus, measurable impact
CareerLab Workshops
Interactive, practical sessions that give young people career-readiness skills, increase exposure to the workplace, and help reduce future unemployment risks.
School/College Support
We deliver programmes like CareerLab directly in schools and colleges, enhancing career provision, supporting Gatsby Benchmark targets, and ensuring students gain meaningful experiences that prepare them for the future workforce.
Employer Partnerships
We help businesses build stronger, future-ready early careers pipelines. By engaging with students through CareerLab, sponsorships, and insight sessions, employers can reduce hiring risk, access better-prepared candidates, and meet social impact or ESG objectives.
The NEET Challenge and a Changing Job Market
11% of 16–24-year-olds in the UK are NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training).
Many industries report difficulty finding career-ready early talent.
Many young people leave education without workplace exposure or skills for these industries
Without targeted, employer-led initiatives, too many young people miss out on the guidance and exposure they need — and organisations struggle to develop effective early careers pipelines. We close this gap by providing practical, meaningful mentorship that prepare young people for real work across a range of sectors, while helping businesses and schools strengthen their talent strategies and social impact.
The Growing Skills Gap
Why Early Careers Should Matter to Employers
Critical Skills Shortages
Employers in sectors like construction, manufacturing, and logistics are facing significant shortages of qualified young talent.
Ageing workforces
Many industries have an ageing workforce and need to bring in young, trained people early to maintain operations and growth.
The Value of Early Engagement
Connecting with future talent early helps employers shape skills, influence career choices, and reduce long-term recruitment costs.
Reduce Hiring Risk
Work experience, mentoring, and exposure programmes reduce the risk of poor hires by allowing employers to assess and develop talent before recruitment.
Improve Social Mobility
Early careers initiatives allow companies to access fresh, diverse talent pools that traditional recruitment may overlook.
Founder message
Bridging the skills gap
In today’s increasingly challenging job market, the journey from education to meaningful employment can feel uncertain, overwhelming, and unequal. Too many young people leave school or college unsure of what’s expected of them in the world of work, while many employers struggle to find talent that is not only qualified but ready to thrive in real roles.
Our mission is simple but ambitious: to lay strong foundations for young talent, making early careers experiences more impactful, more inclusive, and more valuable — for both young people and the organisations that will rely on them in the future.