Choosing a career is a big deal. You’ll spend a significant amount of time at work and in order to enjoy your job, stay motivated and fulfil your potential, you need to choose wisely.
You first need to know yourself. This means taking stock of your skills and assessing your interests and values.
Career planning is important for a number of reasons – having a career development plan in place reduces your risk of making impulsive decisions, and helps you recognise when you’re ready to look for new opportunities and develop new skills.
It is important to consider Future jobs in 2030 when exploring careers. (More information about jobs in the future can found in the labour market information section)
Learn how to make good decisions about future courses by clicking on the video below ‘Making decisions about Post 16 Options’
Let’s explore all the careers you can do in your favourite subject using these useful websites below
Art and Design
discovercreative.careers (a directory that pulls in career information from lots of other creative websites including some of those below)
www.screenskills.com (Film and TV, Animation, Games and VFX)
www.thecreativeindustries.org.uk
Business Studies
www.libf.ac.uk/my-financial-career
www.mathscareers.org.uk/business-money
www.accaglobal.com (Accountancy)
www.att.org.uk/careers-tax
www.discoverrisk.co.uk
www.cisi.org/get-into-finance
Computer Science
www.bubble-jobs.co.uk/career_portal
https://www.tpdegrees.com/careers/ (cases studies about people in IT and Digital)
www.screenskills.com (excellent information about the Gaming sector)
www.cybersecuritychallenge.org.uk/careers
www.aixr.org/insights emerging world of Extended Reality-XR)
English
discovercreative.careers
www.ccskills.org.uk/careers (Creative Choices)
www.screenskills.com (Film and TV)
www.nctj.com/want-to-be-a-journalist
www.publishers.co.uk/activities/careers
Geography
rgs.org/geography(Royal Geographical Society)
www.geography.org.uk (Geographical Association careers resource)
www.geolsoc.org.uk/CareersInfo (The Geological Society)
History
www.history.org.uk/student (Historical Association)
www.museumsassociation.org
www.lawcareers.net
Math
www.mathscareers.org.uk (Institute of Mathematics)
www.libf.ac.uk/my-financial-career (London Institute of Banking and Finance)
www.tomorrowsengineers.org.uk
Media Studies
discovercreative.careers
www.screenskills.com (Film and TV, Animation, Games and VFX)
www.bubble-jobs.co.uk/career_portal
www.nctj.com/want-to-be-journalist
Modern Foreign Languages (MFL)
www.iti.org.uk (Institute of Translating and Interpreting)
www.ciol.org.uk/news/a-life-with-languages (Chartered Institute of Linguists)
www.grb.uk.com (excellent and concise article about the value of languages to employers)
www.all-languages.org.uk/why-study-languages
www.scilt.org.uk (some convincing statistics about the need for languages)
www.studyinternational.com (the languages UK employers are seeking most)
www.mi5.gov.uk and www.sis.gov.uk (James Bond is fluent in French and German and has been known to speak Italian, Greek, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese amongst others….. probably. However it is true that our security services highly value multi-linguists)
P.E.
www.bases.org.uk (‘Careers in Sport’ booklet from British Association of Sport and Exercise Science)
www.careers-in-sport.co.uk
www.futuremorph.org (Sports section in My Future Finder)
Performing Arts
discovercreative.careers
www.ccskills.org.uk/careers/advice/ (Creative Choices)
www.onedanceuk.org (the national body for Dance in the UK)
www.ukmusic.org
www.careersinmusic.co.uk (careers information about performing, producing and business roles in the industry)
www.getintotheatre.org
www.cdmt.org.uk (Council for Dance, Drama and Musical Theatre)
Science
www.futuremorph.org (launched in 2008 by the Science Council as part of the ‘Careers from Science’ initiative)
www.rsb.org.uk/careers-and-cpd/careers (Royal Society of Biology)
www.rsc.org/careers/future/ (Royal Society of Chemistry)
www.iop.org/careers (Institute of Physics)
www.tomorrowsengineers.org.uk (the Tomorrow’s Engineers programme led by the UK Engineering community)
www.healthcareers.nhs.uk (the website for all health careers in the NHS including accredited course finder)
Technology (Design and Technology)
www.tomorrowsengineers.org.uk (the Tomorrow’s Engineers programme led by the UK Engineering community)
www.screenskills.com (Film and TV, Animation, Games and VFX)
www.ccskills.org.uk/careers (Creative Choices)
discovercreative.careers
www.hospitalityguild.co.uk (an alliance of employers, skills bodies, individuals and training providers promoting the hospitality industry)
www.tastycareers.co.uk (National Skills Academy for Food and Drink)
Useful websites below..
https://targetcareers.co.uk/
https://careersmart.org.uk/occupations/occupations-a-to-z/a
https://icould.com/explore/#subject
https://www.careerpilot.org.uk/job-sectors/subjects
https://www.careerpilot.org.uk/job-sectors/animal/job-profiles
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zdqnxyc
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zmdc382
Careers you can do in your favourite subject at school
https://www.careerpilot.org.uk/job-sectors/subjects
https://www.c360.org.uk/_app_/resources/documents/www.c360.org.uk/education-and-training/careers-hub/Workplace%20photos.pdf
https://discovercreative.careers/#/
Videos are useful to see what you would be doing in your ideal jobs.
Explore videos to get an insight into careers and work, and draw links between subjects and jobs. There are over 1000 videos of real people talking about their careers – explaining their job role, career path and how different factors have shaped their choices. Videos can be filtered by job type or subject and cover a range of sectors and levels.
Making Good Decisions
Use good decision-making techniques to help you choose
Avoid these decision-making techniques:
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Don’t choose things because your friends are doing them
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Don’t ask other people to make decisions for you
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Don’t flip a coin to decide
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Don’t rush into a decision without thinking it through
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Don’t decide out of fear
Make a backup plan (just in case)
It’s always a good idea to make a backup plan, a Plan B. Sometimes your first choice doesn’t work out. For example, a course you choose may be cancelled. So, having a backup plan means that you won’t have to panic if your first choice isn’t available.
Act on your decision
You’ve made your decision. Now is the time to act on your decision. For example, this could mean, enrolling on a course or putting down your subject choices for next year. Taking the first step could even be as simple as contacting a college or university to find out about open days
