Modern Work Experience
What is Modern Work Experience?
In England, schools, employers, and policy makers are rethinking what work experience should look like. Modern work experience goes beyond the traditional one-week placement. It is a flexible, meaningful, progressive approach that ensures every young person has the opportunity to discover work, develop skills, and make informed choices.
Why change is needed
Traditional work experience can sometimes feel short because:
- Placements are typically offered as a single block (within KS4), leaving little room for earlier exposure or progression.
- Students from disadvantaged backgrounds often have fewer opportunities, or are unable to easily access meaningful employer placements.
- In many placements, young people had limited interaction with employers, or did tasks that gave little insight or skill development.
- There was less structure: outcomes, reflection and feedback weren’t always built in, making it harder for schools to evidence impact
These challenges, alongside national ambitions for equity and quality, have driven the move towards modern work experience, and urge for a change in school practices to align with long term goals.
Key features of Modern Work Experience
Modern work experience isn’t just about when or where it happens, it’s about how it’s designed, who it reaches, and what it achieves. Here are the core elements:
| Feature | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Multiple encounters over time | Young people should have repeated, varied workplace experiences from Key Stage 3 onwards , not just a one-off block. |
| Meaningful & structured learning outcomes | Every experience should have clear goals, tasks, feedback, and student reflection built in. Schools and employers define what young people will learn. |
| Equitable access | Particular focus on ensuring SEND learners, rural schools, and disadvantaged students aren’t left behind. They all deserve access to a modern Careers Education. |
| Employer involvement | Employers help design experiences, offer real tasks, engage in meaningful ways and provide feedback. |
| Variety of experience types | Alongside traditional placements, you can include virtual experiences, small group visits, employer-led projects, virtual tours, employer encounters, after-school programmes and so much more. |
| Integration with careers framework & policy | Modern work experience is aligned with frameworks like equalex, the updated Gatsby Benchmarks, and the government’s upcoming work experience guarantee. |
| Reflection & feedback | After the experience young people should be able to reflect on skills, insights, next steps and receive constructive feedback from the employers. |
What policy and guidance say
National policy around work experience is evolving, but the direction of travel is clear: more structured, inclusive, and progressive opportunities for every learner. Schools don’t need to do everything overnight, but it’s important to be aware of the ambitions and begin planning.
- The Work Experience Guarantee isn’t statutory (yet), but the government will be asking for ten days/50 hours worth of work experience, across KS3 and KS4, for every young person.
- The Careers & Enterprise Company’s Modern Work Experience definition says schools should deliver multiple work-place experiences, totalling 10 days throughout secondary education.
- Schools are encouraged to be flexible. Traditional placements are still valid, but must be underpinned by structure, meaningful learning outcomes, and support for those who face barriers.
A core focus of the guidance is on equity of access and addressing barriers, particularly for SEND learners, rural schools, and disadvantaged students, ensuring no young person misses out.
How Modern Work Experience helps students, schools and employers
For students
- Builds confidence and awareness of different careers.
- Helps develop transferable skills that employers will value: communication, teamwork, problem solving etc.
- Gives insight into what work is really like – helping them make better decisions about further education, apprenticeships, or jobs.
- Reduces risk of becoming NEET (not in education, employment, or training).
For schools
- Helps meet Gatsby Benchmarks, in particular Benchmark 6: Experiences of the workplace and strengthens evidence for Ofsted.
- Provides evidence of impact through structured outcomes and student reflection.
- Encourages stronger partnerships with employers.
For employers
- A chance to help shape the future workforce.
- Helps contribute to social mobility and community impact.
- Creates engagement with young talent early on, and helps later down the line with recruitment pipelines.
What Modern Work Experience looks like in practice
Here are some examples of ways that schools are already trying to put Modern Work Experience into practice:
- Small-group visits or virtual workplace tours in Year 7 or 8.
- Employer-led projects or competitions during school term.
- After-school or enrichment programmes run jointly with local businesses.
- Traditional placements in Years 10-11 but with clear learning outcomes, mentoring, employer feedback and student reflection.
- Hybrid or virtual placements for learners where travel or onsite placement is difficult.
Challenges to navigate
Modern work experience sounds good, but delivering it well isn’t without obstacles. Schools and employers can face barriers that need careful planning, but with the right support, they can be easily overcome.
- Capacity: schools and employers need time, staff, coordination.
- Equity: ensuring students in rural areas, students with special needs, or those without good transport etc also have fair access.
- Quality control: ensuring all experiences are meaningful, not just “shadowing” or low impact.
- Safety, safeguarding, and insurance requirements still apply. These can make some employer engagement complex.
- Administrative burden: paperwork, tracking, ensuring feedback, assessment etc.
We can help you navigate these challenges through our resources, tools, guidance and platform.
What will make Modern Work Experience succeed
Despite the challenges, there are clear ingredients that will make modern work experience effective, equitable, and sustainable. These are some of the core elements to success:
- Clear learning outcomes and reflection at each stage so students know what they are working towards and can reflect on progress.
- Frequent touch points with employers over time rather than just the traditional block placements in KS4. .
- Support for students: preperation, mentoring, transport, reflection.
- Partnered employer-design so activities reflect both student needs and employer expectations.
- Tracking & evaluation: evidence of outcomes, skills gained, student confidence, next steps.
- Inclusivity built in from the start: ensuring opportunities are accessible to all young people.
Final thoughts
Modern work experience is a shift from “block week placements” to a distributed, meaningful journey of workplace learning. It is about giving students early, repeated, rich experiences so they understand work, build skills, and make choices with confidence.
For schools, adopting modern work experience means rethinking how careers education is delivered across the curriculum and year groups, not just another tick-box exercise.. For employers it means being part of the solution – shaping meaningful experiences that change lives.
If you are a Careers Leader or teacher, now is the moment to audit your programme against modern work experience principles. Are your students getting varied experiences, frequent encounters, and real feedback? If not, there is space to evolve and lots of support to help you get there.
