5 principles for scaling employability across your institution: key takeaways from UWE 

Advice and guidance are powerful tools, but they will only ever push a small proportion of students into better outcomes, because the model’s difficult to scale. The real impact comes from embedding employability within academic programmes, to ensure that all students encounter it as part of their studies. 

League tables, Teaching Excellence Frameworks and recruitment pressures also support this, as they increasingly point towards graduate outcomes as key institutional aims. Student satisfaction measures, including the National Student Survey, are also tied to how prepared students feel for the world of work. 

That’s led to a growing recognition that employability belongs within the curriculum. Even academics that are focused on traditional learning techniques recognise that these goals can still be achieved through an employability lens. Critical thinking, for example, can be applied to analysing the labour market or to understanding how knowledge connects to the world of work. 

Careers staff have had to pivot to become educators, but there’s never going to be enough resource to deliver everything centrally. If careers and employability are going to sit in all programmes, at all levels, we need to provide resources and train-the-trainer support to help academics feel confident in delivering employability-related learning themselves. 

There’s no reason why this shouldn’t be a natural evolution, because academic and employability skills are already closely related. Many of the capabilities developed through academic study, such as analysis, research and problem-solving, for example, translate naturally into a workplace context. Helping academics draw those connections within their teaching allows students to see how their learning can translate in the future. 

Scaling employability requires clear insight into where support will have the greatest impact. Graduate outcomes data is a key source of information for this. By examining whether certain cohorts or programmes fall below market levels, institutions can identify where improvements may be needed.  

This also allows careers teams and academics to focus their efforts on areas where additional support is required. In some cases, this can lead to curriculum enhancement – using data to inform small adjustments to the curriculum that can have a lasting impact on employability outcomes. In others, it involves targeted outreach to students within those programmes. 

Career registration data also provides valuable insight, helping institutions to identify patterns of uncertainty or indecision among particular groups. If this uncertainty remains high in the final year, institutions can step in to offer one-to-one support to those students before they graduate. 

A constant challenge for employability services is reaching students who don’t naturally engage with careers support. 

Peer-to-peer approaches can work well here. Careers lounges, for example, facilitate conversations between students rather than with professionals. Speaking to peers can remove some of the barriers that prevent students from seeking support.  

For students that are introverted or lack confidence, digital tools can provide an even better alternative. Online resources, interactive tools and emerging AI-enabled systems allow students to explore careers, build CVs or receive feedback without needing to have a face-to-face conversation. This also helps students to use AI effectively when applying for jobs and shows future employers that they already have a grasp of how AI can be used in the workplace. 

As digital capabilities continue to develop, institutions can create even more routes into employability support. But traditional visibility still matters. Being present at inductions, events and across campus helps to normalise conversations around careers.  

The most effective engagement strategies combine digital, peer-to-peer and in-person approaches to ensure students can access support in a way that suits them. 

For institutions looking to scale employability, the key is to recognise that this work cannot sit within careers services alone. Embedding employability successfully requires partnership across teaching, curriculum design and institutional strategy. 

It’s an exciting time for employability services within universities. Careers teams increasingly sit in the space between academic delivery and student support, acting as a bridge between the academic world and the employer world. 

That bridge is becoming more established as institutions recognise that the curriculum is a powerful platform for enhancing employability. Careers professionals are working more closely with academics and digital skills specialists to build employability into the learning experience itself. 

For those of us working in careers services, we will need to understand the academic domain more and more. But the same is true of academics and their need to understand how employability can transform student outcomes.  

As the labour market, employer demands and student expectations continue to evolve, it’s up to all of us within higher education to adapt and respond.