Teenage career development in Wales

This paper explores the state of teenage career development in Wales. It sets out findings from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a comparative international survey of young people in secondary education. PISA 2022 notably provides considerable data on young people’s engagement in, and perceptions of, career development, including information on occupational and educational intentions and participation in career development activities. This paper compares student responses in Wales to averages across the OECD, disaggregated by a range of student characteristics, including gender, socio-economic background, academic proficiency and school type attended (including by language spoken). Levels of career uncertainty in Wales, as across the OECD, are now very high. Students in Wales who express an occupational expectation are very strongly focused in one field of employment: the professions. They also increasingly expect to complete tertiary education. The occupational expectations of young people however are poorly aligned with actual patterns of labour market demand. In comparison to OECD countries, opportunity exists to significantly increase the engagement of students in Wales in career development. In terms of equity, the study shows evidence of gender and social disparities being addressed.