Young people's low aspirations due to poor careers advice

Only half of 14 to 24-year-olds have had careers advice in the last year, and of those only two out of five found the advice useful.

Research carried out by Professions Week, which surveyed 2,448 14-24-year-olds and their parents, also found that while there are high levels of awareness about different professional jobs, some young people have low aspirations due to lack of good quality careers advice offered to them and their parents.

While the majority of parents are happy to give their children careers advice (86 per cent), of those that didn't, the most common reason was that they didn't know enough about career options (60 per cent).

Sarah Hathaway, chair of Professions Week, said more needs to be done to ensure that both young people and their parents receive better careers advice and guidance.

"Professional bodies can help by providing accurate information for careers advisors and online sources, however there is a need for a coordinating role between individual advisors, their schools and colleges, professional bodies and employers," she added.

The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) president Frances Edwards agreed that the professions need to do more to ensure that quality careers advice is delivered to young people, their parents and teachers. CILEx is one of the founding professional bodies involved in creating Professions Week.

"CILEx is proud to be supporting Professions Week for the second year" said Edwards, "and our team of regional development officers will this week be visiting schools, colleges and universities across England and Wales to inform those young people about the CILEx route.

"Working in law is accessible to all and we will continue to champion the vocational route into law that CILEx has offered for more than 50 years."

Gender bias

The research also revealed that gender stereotypes are stronger among parents than their children, and that parents of girls were significantly more likely to say their child would pursue roles historically carried out by women. These findings were the opposite of parents surveyed with male children.

As a result girls are more likely to pursue a learning and development or communications role than an engineering position, due to gender-biased parents.

Other key findings from the research found that 14 to 24-year-olds from lower socio-economic groups had lower awareness, aspirations and expectations of becoming a professional and were slightly less likely to think that more support would make a positive difference. Of this same demographic, just 45 per cent thought they would "probably go to university", in contrast to 83 per cent of their higher socio-economic counterparts.

In addition, perceptions of life as a professional were generally positive and viewed as exciting, offering freedom on how and when you do your tasks and greater earnings.