National Careers Week: KQ Futures team highlights

National Careers Week is a one-week celebration of careers guidance and free resources in education across the UK. It aims to provide a focus for careers guidance activity at an important stage in the academic calendar, to help support young people develop awareness and excitement about their future pathways.

This year, National Careers Week ran from 3rd to 8th March, and our KQ Futures team were kept very busy, getting involved in a number of events, visits and sessions, to increase awareness, inform and inspire local young people on their career journeys. 

One of the main activities took place on Wednesday 5th March, when we ran a Future Innovators Day, a key strand of our KQ Futures programme, part of the Liverpool City Region Innovation Zone. Ten students from Dixons Fazakerley Academy, aged between fourteen and fifteen, were invited to visit the Knowledge Quarter Liverpool innovation district, to experience the range of innovative careers available to them on their doorstep.

The Year 10 students met with local businesses who employ hundreds of people working across the science, technology and engineering sectors, and undertook a tour of their facilities at Sciontec owned Liverpool Science Park.

Guest speakers on the day included colleagues from Liverpool John Moores University’s Astrophysics Research Institute who shared insights into their own career journeys and offered practical advice for routes into STEM careers.

The Future Innovators Day tour also took the students to visit the University of Liverpool, enabling them to explore their state of the art Digital Innovation Facility, where collaborative exploration of emerging research and digital technologies help accelerate innovation.

The KQ Futures team received extremely positive feedback from the students and teachers who attended, with one teacher describing the day as “extremely enlightening” and that “the students gained so much out of it”. Another added that “I most sincerely believe that your innovation day has inspired our students.”

Another key event during National Careers Week was KQ Liverpool’s ‘In The Know’ breakfast, on Thursday 6th March, which had a focus of Accelerating Action thanks to the date also correlating with International Women’s Day.

Over 60 attendees gathered to hear a panel of leading industry experts share their insights into breaking down the obstacles impeding women’s progress and gender inequality, as well as enjoying some informal networking.

Facilitated by Rachel Newman (KQ Liverpool), the expert panel included Jen Fenner (DefProc Engineering), Prof. Ana Brás (Liverpool John Moores University) and Philippa Glover (Philippa Glover Ltd). Key topics discussed included the need for more female founders, skills needed for future careers, and innovative ways to inspire young women to take up careers within health, science and technology right here in the Liverpool City Region.

During National Careers Week, members of the KQ Liverpool team were also invited to a roundtable hosted by LCR Careers Hub to mark the launch of modern work experience pilot, equalex, which is one of four national pilots launched across the UK.  The pilot focuses on introducing meaningful work experience to improve work readiness and employability skills for young people.  Whilst in the programme’s infancy, we were delighted to be involved in discussions on how to shape this programme moving forward and are excited to see how the developments support the future talent pool of Liverpool City Region in the years to come.

A key part of our 2040 Vision is to inspire the next generation of innovators, and getting involved with large scale initiatives, like National Careers Week, is just one way we are delivering our mission to create a place that is both inclusive and inspirational for generations to come, through fostering transformation, raising aspirations and showcasing innovation.