Since independent training providers were told in May to follow the government’s updated guidance on careers provision from September this year, I’ve spent the past few months connecting with colleagues across the country to see how they’re preparing.
Many colleagues welcomed the clarity. But others worried the benchmarks were still too aligned with schools and colleges. For those of us delivering apprenticeships and other provision in real workplaces, we’ve had to ask how do we make the framework work in practice?
Personal guidance (benchmark eight) is a hot topic. Some are concerned that delivering impartial, structured guidance within a workplace learning model feels like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. Beneath this sits another challenge: how do we ensure careers education isn’t just a compliance exercise, but something strategic, embedded and owned from the top down?
For me the answer is simple: stop seeing careers as the job of one individual.
In education, distributed leadership is the idea that responsibility for an area doesn’t sit with a single leader or department. Instead, it’s shared across the organisation, with each role contributing to a bigger picture.
For careers, this means that while there is a named ‘careers leader’ (a completely essential role), accountability and ownership run through the whole provider – from the boardroom to delivery staff.
Too often with ITPs, the careers leader is seen as the person who “does Gatsby”. But the new guidance is clear: careers provision must be embedded in strategy, quality processes, and learner outcomes. That can’t happen if one person is left holding the responsibility.
At Learning Curve Group, we’ve taken small but deliberate steps:
- Executive and board-level oversight: Senior leaders, including our CEO, executive team and board members, ensure careers delivery is part of performance discussions and strategy. They are regularly briefed on careers priorities by the director of student services and head of careers, and understand how these link to Ofsted’s education inspection framework (EIF) judgement areas, particularly leadership and management and personal development.
- Director of student services: This person ensures careers guidance is integrated within learner support services and personal development strategies. They collaborate across safeguarding, enrichment, mental health and destinations planning.
- Head of careers: Leads on strategy, compliance and innovation in careers guidance, ensuring alignment to Gatsby benchmarks, EIF expectations and statutory duties.
- Heads of department and regional operations managers: Champion consistency and quality across sites and subject areas. They support the implementation of the careers strategy at delivery level and ensure staff have the tools and time to prioritise meaningful careers integration.
- Careers champions: These are nominated staff across academies who act as on-the-ground advocates and conduits for high-quality careers guidance. They localise strategy, drive innovation, and share examples of best practice to motivate and inspire teams.
- Delivery teams: Teams are supported to embed careers guidance through training, professional development and high-quality resources. Careers is not a ‘bolt-on’ but is integrated into schemes of work, conversations and learner journeys.
- Investing in Edtech development: We’ve significantly invested in the development of several edtech platforms, including CareersPro which records, tracks and enhances independent careers guidance and delivery, and DestinationsPro which captures long-term learner outcomes.
We are one of the largest ITPs in the country but we know ITPs come in all shapes and sizes. We all face the same risk: if careers remains “someone else’s job,” the Gatsby benchmarks will never feel authentic in our sector.
The steps we’ve taken show that distributed leadership isn’t about creating extra layers. It’s about embedding careers in what people already do.
We don’t have all the answers, but we believe that sharing practice is the key to collective progress. We’d love to see more providers, leaders and careers professionals come together to explore how the benchmarks framework can work for ITPs. Because if we keep treating careers as a one-person responsibility, we’ll keep hitting the same walls.
At Learning Curve Group, we’re ready to keep the conversation going. From our CEO to our frontline staff, we’re all in. And we’re inviting the sector to join us.
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