Key Takeaways:
- The labour market is not as bad as the narrative suggests, but cutting junior pipelines today creates leadership shortages for tomorrow. Therefore, businesses and government need to take a longer view on talent investment
- Teacher investment is essential to any careers reform. Incentives, not levies, are the right model for boosting employer investment in skills
- Most jobs don't go through large graduate programmes. Helping candidates navigate less visible pathways is essential to create real progress
- AI is creating jobs as well as displacing them. In five years it will be as unremarkable as using a smartphone
- Communication, curiosity and critical thinking are the skills that matter most as careers continue to become increasingly non-linear
The state of graduate vacancies
The panel stressed that the data is mixed and headline statistics can be misleading. Data from Adzuna’s UK Job Market Report reveals that UK graduate vacancies reportedly fell below 10,000 in January, down 45% year-on-year. Yet employer-side data from the Institute of Student Employers suggests a more modest 8% decline, alongside growth in apprenticeships. Additionally, and the total number of people in graduate-level employment actually grew in 2025.
AI or the Economy?
It was argued that rising employer costs (such as increased employer National Insurance contributions) and weak business confidence are driving junior hiring cuts at least as much as AI. Therefore, businesses are defaulting to lower-risk, experienced hires rather than investing in graduate & junior talent.
However, it was warned that businesses restructuring away from entry-level roles today risk creating a serious shortage of experienced managers in five to ten years' time.
Conversely, IBM is tripling its number of US entry-level hiring because of AI, viewing graduates and apprentices as ideally placed to work with emerging technology due to their adaptability and lack of entrenched ways of working. It was highlighted that jobs change with every technology, hence why its integral young people are employed into these emerging sectors so they can learn and contribute as those industries develop.
Skills and Social Mobility
Employers emphasised that communication, critical thinking and curiosity are more important than technical skills, which can be taught on the job.
It was mentioned that University career services engage with fewer than half of their students, yet almost all will seek work. In the absence of formal guidance, many rely on peers and informal advice, such as applying early for internships, tailoring applications, and understanding recruitment timelines, which tends to advantage those from more privileged backgrounds.
At the same time, both candidates and employers are increasingly using AI in recruitment. This risks creating a feedback loop where human interaction diminishes, and candidates without strong networks or peer advice are more likely to be overlooked.
AI is creating jobs as well as displacing them
The panel agreed that AI is both creating and displacing roles across the economy, and that narrative tends to focus heavily on displacement at the expense of the opportunities being generated, particularly in technology, where some data actually shows growth in roles such as software engineering.
Panellists also made the case that young people who have grown up digitally literate and who embrace AI tools with curiosity and confidence are more valuable to organisations than experienced workers who haven't invested in updating their skills.
Youth Employment UK's Census data outlines that a third of young people are excited about AI in the context of their careers, while over half are worried about it. Around 40% are already changing their career aspirations in response, sometimes on the basis of poorly informed assumptions about which roles AI will eliminate. Getting accurate, reassuring information to young people about what AI will and won't do to their options is itself an urgent task.
