Breakfast News - July 2024

Regional hiring in early careers is not a new concept, but perhaps what’s become challenging for employers is attracting early careers talent to those roles outside of London. Addressing these challenges requires a concerted effort from all stakeholders to create appealing opportunities and working environments for apprentices, interns, industrial placements and graduates.

On the student front, there’s a combination of factors creating impacts on the supply of talent for employers such as perceived lack of opportunities, relocation concerns and cost of living.

For employers, they’re grappling with attracting talent locally, brand and working environment perceptions, difficulty in highlighting benefits and candidate reluctance to relocate.

Educators on the other hand, are managing geographical bias perceptions, student preferences, cost of studying and living away from home.

In this latest Breakfast News instalment, we heard from economists, employers, students and industry experts, who talked us through their challenges, successes and forecasts for what lies ahead. Joining them as a keynote, was BBC broadcaster, journalist and presenter, Clive Myrie. His lived experiences of living and working in different cities encouraged us to think about additional factors such as culture, environment, new experiences and those non-geographical associated links we can often create biased barriers and misperceptions around.

The session as always was packed with statistical insights and personal experiences to help employers and educators understand just how difficult it can be to navigate regional nuances, manage business expectations and what’s needed to support students and graduates to aid brand reputation and onboarding success.

Here are a few highlights:

• The opportunity in regions is huge. A significant decline in preferences to work in London from Cibyl data over the last 5 years.‍
• Graduates aren’t as mobile as we think. A large proportion of students are returning home post-university, plus those who stayed at home to study, are generally staying local after university too.
• “Everyone’s got a Newcastle”. Coined from the start of the session, there was a common feeling reaffirmed that employers no matter size and reputation, have some locations they struggle with more than others.‍
• Use data to manage upwards. Early careers leaders can defend their strategies and really push back on demand asks and diversity aspirations to C-suite, if armed with the right data from the likes of Cibyl, HESA and ISE. The data will allow you to dispel myths as well as gain buy-in on the longer-term challenge.‍
• Salaries are becoming increasingly important. There’s a difference of over 20% in the starting salaries in London v some UK regions for school leavers and graduates. Whereas students’ expectations are increasingly growing due to cost of living pressures.
• New government, new approach to policies. The National Wealth Fund may help areas to grow economically and societally, when previously the Levelling Up budget of £5 billion was underspent and half of the objectives made progress.‍
• Soft-power factors.  Not to overlook the non-geographical aspects of the opportunity for study and work, such as culture, arts, lived experiences, diversity of people and minds.

Access the resources below to:

• Watch the video recordings of our speakers and panellists.
• Download the slideware.
• Read the extended write-up.