Careers and labour market information

We want to support you and your students to understand employer views and labour market trends

University Alliance represents professional and technical universities, which specialise in working with industry and employers.

We know from research we have conducted with young people that they are experiencing increasing levels of anxiety around their future careers and making choices that will best enhance their employability.

We also know from speaking to employers that there is no one ‘right’ route to a career, but that students should make the right choices for them.

We want to work with our employer contacts to enable you to give your students the information they need, while reducing the pressure they feel to follow one set path.

How can we help?

Talks and presentations

University Alliance delivers a number of talks and presentations for school careers advisors every year. We run online webinars and speak at in-person conferences about employer needs and labour market trends, often bringing employer spokespeople with us to offer their perspective.

Due to capacity, we are unable to give talks or workshops to individual schools currently, but if you can get a group together we’d be delighted to organise a session.

If you sign up to our schools’ information email alerts, we can also let you know if and when we are able to offer individual school talks, or when we are running events you can attend.

Original research

We and our member universities keep a close eye on labour market trends, and that includes surveying and regularly speaking to employers.

In March 2024, we have commissioned CBI Economics to conduct a large-scale survey of employers to understand what they look for in applicants, and particularly university graduates. This research will report in late June/Early July 2024.

We will share this through our schools’ information email alert when they are ready.