Are we losing creative talent to other industries?

We were quite surprised to read the results of a recent survey which revealed that young people aren’t getting the guidance they need to enable them to pursue a career in the creative industries.

The research was conducted by market research company OnePoll and it discovered that half of young people want creative jobs, but feel their schools aren’t supporting them or providing the information they need to be able to take this route.

1,000 respondents from across the UK took part in the survey, including 500 16-25-year-olds and 500 parents with at least one child aged between 16-25.

49 percent of the young people surveyed said they’d like a job in a creative industry, with this increasing to 70 percent with the 16-18-year-olds. However, 62 per cent of all of the students said they don’t feel like they receive enough information about these creative jobs from career advisors and teachers during their time at school.

We felt the most surprising, and concerning, statistic of all was the fact that almost half of the students surveyed (47 percent) said they felt pressured to follow a more “traditional” career.

After reading this news on Design Week, we were discussing it as a team and thought back to our school days (a while ago for a few of us admittedly!) We certainly don’t feel like the career advice we were offered ventured much further than jobs in teaching, nursing, engineering etc., and it’s quite worrying to learn that this hasn’t really changed.

We still made it here to work in a creative industry, which proves that it is still possible; but just think how many young people we’re losing to other industries because of the lack of advice in schools.

We regularly invite students to CAKE HQ for work experience and absolutely love giving them the opportunity to get a feel for this industry - one of the many awesome creative ones!

If you are a student or know one who’s keen to do some work experience or even to just seek some advice, drop us a line. We’re always keen to help where we can!