Setting Young People up for Success

The Prince's Trust is a UK charitable institution that helps vulnerable people from the ages of 16 to 30 rebuild their lives through education and employment opportunities. Founded in 1976 by the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, the charity runs core training programmes and works with key partners on initiatives designed to help people boost their skills and get into the workforce. 

One such partner is CareerRadar - a not-for-profit organisation that offers a career matching tool. Based on a personality questionnaire, users can find careers that suit their personality and skills and learn more about specific roles. 

Lightcast and CareerRadar: Finding your ideal career 

To provide detailed insights into occupations and further support people in navigating their career paths, Career Radar needed granular UK labour market data that accurately reflected employer demand. 

In 2020 CareerRadar reached out to Lightcast, and since then Lightcast has sponsored the employment data that feeds into CareerRadar’s tool. A limited features version of the tool is embedded into The Prince's Trust website and is available to anyone. The full version is leveraged by The Prince's Trust and offered as part of its initiatives.

Zooming in on occupations and employment data 

The Lightcast data that CareerRadar uses include: 

• Number of people currently employed 

• Job vacancies each year

• Average rate of pay (per hour)

• Projected change (2023-2028)

• A map of the UK hotspots showing the distribution of demand for a particular occupation 

This data is available for every occupation, enabling users to really dive deeper into each role and understand how much demand there is for it, which UK regions show the highest demand, and specific salary information. 

“If they pick the career that's got very few people in it in the UK, there's a discussion to be had around that. The number of vacancies each year is partly helping them decide on a career path if they're not sure about several careers,” says Paul Creamer, CEO of Career Radar. 

And the insights go on: the average rate of pay enables people to set an expectation of how much money they would earn; understanding whether jobs are growing or declining can give them an indication of whether or not that’s the best career choice for them; and the UK hotspots map can help them see whether they may need to relocate for the job they want.

Using data to guide people into the right careers 

The tool averages 150 users per month, though the number of new users has only just begun to increase due to the recent deployment across The Prince's Trust. This detailed employment data enables The Prince's Trust to extend the support it is providing both directly to people and to educational institutions across the UK, and to fuel its mission of helping millions of people in challenging circumstances to overcome their obstacles and get an enriching career.  

 “The Lightcast team has been really supportive from the moment we first contacted them. When we're doing something that we're not making any money from, it’s refreshing that someone comes along and supports us because it’s a good cause. Lightcast data is helping us on a crucial mission to improve people's lives across the UK, and it’s genuinely been a fantastic journey,” Paul shares. 

Commenting on the success of this partnership, Simon Creed, Head of Content at The Prince’s Trust, says: 

“The data provided by Lightcast informs a clear, interactive, needs-based learning experience that builds young people's understanding of the jobs market and the potential pathways available to them. It opens up opportunities for important conversations that will ultimately enable them to make more informed career choices as they embark on their journey into the world of work.”