Vocational education can open doors for young people who may not see university as the right route for them, giving them the chance to build skills, gain experience and move into work. I know that from my own experience.
I grew up in Shepherd’s Bush in west London with my mum and two brothers. I was on free school meals and we didn’t have much money. I knew I wasn’t the strongest academically, but I was determined to work hard and make the most of whatever opportunities came my way.
When I left formal education at 19, university wasn’t really on the cards. I’d been seen at school as someone who was more “vocationally bright” than university material. So, I took a BTEC in Business and Finance at Hammersmith and West London College. As part of the course, I spent several weeks on work experience with a billboard advertising company. At the end of the placement, they offered me my first full-time job as a finance administrator.
Looking back, that relatively simple connection between college and an employer changed the course of my life.
I didn’t have a carefully mapped-out career ahead of me. But I had been given the chance to get into a workplace, show what I could do and start learning. One opportunity led to another and, over more than three decades, I have been fortunate enough to build what I sometimes describe as three careers in one place – working across finance, sales and HR before eventually finding my way into early careers.
That journey shapes a lot of how I think about the choices we give young people today.
We’ve talked for years about creating parity of esteem between academic and technical education, but I’m not convinced we’ve achieved it yet. University is absolutely the right route for many young people, but it cannot be the only route we treat as a mark of success.
For some, it simply isn’t affordable. For others, it doesn’t suit the way they learn or the kind of career they want to build. They need a genuine alternative that allows them to learn, earn, and develop the practical and technical skills that make them ready for work.
Apprenticeships and T Levels should sit alongside university as equal choices from the outset, not be treated as something young people discover when another route hasn’t worked out.
If the government genuinely wants schools to treat technical and academic pathways equally, then it needs to look at the incentives surrounding them. We rightly celebrate academic attainment and progression to university, but there should be the same recognition for a school that supports a young person into a high-quality apprenticeship, T Level or another technical route.
That means making those destinations count much more clearly in the way schools are measured and funded. At the moment, there is very little direct benefit for a school that puts significant time into building relationships with employers, helping pupils understand apprenticeship opportunities or guiding them through what can be a complex application process. Many incredible teachers and careers leaders do that work anyway because they know it is right for the young person, but we should not be relying on goodwill alone.
If we are serious about parity, then we should be making sure schools have both the incentive and the resources to support young peoples’ progression into apprenticeships and T Levels. That needs to go hand in hand with rebuilding the relationship between education and employers.
My own first job came directly from work experience. My college had a relationship with an employer, that employer gave me a chance to spend time in the business, and that experience turned into a job.
It sounds simple, but those connections matter enormously. Work experience gave me the chance to build my confidence and understand how a workplace operated. It also gave my employer the chance to see me as more than a set of grades.
Too many young people today reach the end of education without enough meaningful exposure to employers or the world of work. At the same time, businesses across the country talk about skills shortages and difficulties finding the people they need. We should be doing much more to bring those two sides together earlier.
That means employers opening their doors, working with schools and colleges to offer meaningful work experience and help young people understand the range of careers available to them. It also means schools and colleges having the time and capacity to build those relationships properly.
At Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, we’ve learnt a lot from looking at the barriers young people face. Over time, we’ve changed parts of our early-careers recruitment, including removing unnecessary qualification requirements from some apprenticeship routes and putting greater emphasis on aptitude and potential.
But even businesses with significant reach cannot do this alone. If we want every young person to have meaningful exposure to the workplace, those relationships need to be built into the system rather than depending on existing networks.
For many young people, the ability to earn while they learn is also crucial. It is not simply an attractive feature of an apprenticeship. It can determine whether further learning is financially possible at all.
That was part of the reality for me. I wanted to work, earn my own money and build a career, and I learnt an enormous amount by doing exactly that. Technical education and apprenticeships can offer young people the same combination of income, experience and progression, while giving employers the opportunity to develop the skills they need.
When I look back at my own career, I know there was an element of luck to it. I happened to take a course with work experience attached and be placed with an employer that was prepared to give me an opportunity. I am enormously grateful for that journey, but young people should not have to rely on luck to find their way into work.
I went to the school of life, and it has served me pretty well. I want young people today to have the same chance to find the route that works for them - without having to stumble across it by accident.
