CareersFest 2024 sees secondary school students from across Oxfordshire meet dozens of businesses, as they begin to map out potential career pathways.
Around 3,000 teenagers from across Oxfordshire are set to meet some of the county’s best businesses this week (20 and 21 March), as CareersFest – the leading employment opportunities exhibition for young people in the area – once again returns to the Kassam Stadium in Oxford.
Led by OxLEP Skills and its Oxfordshire Careers Hub, CareersFest brings together businesses and those set to take on exams in the coming years, with the aim of inspiring employment decisions, as well as connecting organisations with future talent.
More than 70 exhibitors will be in-place across the two-day event, with a significant proportion of Oxfordshire secondary schools, special schools and further education colleges expected to visit CareersFest.
Similar to 2023, this year’s CareersFest takes place at the Kassam Stadium across this Wednesday and Thursday with – as was the case 12 months’ ago – the event also due to benefit from a ‘twilight session’ for parents and carers, scheduled for Wednesday evening, between 4.30pm and 7.30pm.
Hundreds of parents and carers have already signed-up to attend the twilight session, with OxLEP encouraging more families to attend, with last minute spaces still available.
WATCH: CareersFest 2023 highlights
As well as several dozen businesses – representing a range of sectors – set to exhibit at the CareersFest, representatives from universities, further education colleges and a host of training providers will also be on-hand to offer advice and guidance.
Since its inception, CareersFest has created the possibility for young people to ‘get up close and personal’ with the products, projects and the services featured companies are developing and delivering on a daily basis.
The event has proved to be beneficial to a strong number of teenagers who have previously attended CareersFest, with many going onto obtain opportunities at those organisations to have exhibited, including apprenticeship placements and work experience openings.
A very strong array of exhibitors has once again been secured, with many nationally or internationally-renowned in their respective fields, including; Williams Racing, Rebellion, Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, a Belmond Hotel, BMW and Abbott to name but a few.
CareersFest is supported by the Careers & Enterprise Company who have worked in partnership with OxLEP Skills for several years.
Sally Andreou – Skills Hub Manager at OxLEP – said: “CareersFest has a track record of successfully bringing together teenagers and businesses, brokering important conversations at a vital time in a young person’s development and indeed, for some of these businesses, during a period where they too are looking to grow their business and access future talent.
“We are therefore delighted to once again be able to create such a prominent event for many of the county’s young people and would very much encourage any parent or carer to consider attending the twilight session too.”
With almost 3,700 apprenticeship starts being secured in Oxfordshire during 2022-2023, OxLEP Skills also hope to inspire even more businesses in the county to create apprenticeship openings, particularly through CareersFest and – in particular – via the annual Oxfordshire Apprenticeship Awards. This year’s awards are set to take place at Williams Racing’ Experience Centre on 16 May.
In addition – over the past 18 months – OxLEP Skills has delivered its Social Contract programme which has so far seen over £2.5million-worth of apprenticeship levy funding secured from Oxfordshire’s largest employers, subsequently pledged to small businesses, leading to 150 new apprenticeships being created.
Sally Andreou added: “Through events like Careers Fest and the Oxfordshire Apprenticeship Awards, we hope that we can help to show businesses the value of apprenticeships, as well as demonstrating that there has never been a better time to engage with them, given the support and advice available to companies through organisations like OxLEP.
“It’s just one part of our overall programme of activity that aims to see Oxfordshire leading the way in apprenticeship provision.
“Our wider work really complements this and can help to give businesses the guidance and boost they need to create or develop an apprenticeship scheme.”
