Choices, chances, and transitions around creative further and higher education

This project explored young people’s creative choices and chances at critical transition points into and beyond further and higher education into the creative sector. The creative industries are a substantial contributor to the UK economy and a growing professional destination for young people. However, accessing employment is not straightforward because pathways into creative careers tend to be non-linear and the skills required in the labour market may not always be supplied through formal education.

What did the project find?

Drawing on large-scale administrative datasets, alongside a longitudinal cohort study, and arts-based qualitative engagement, the research revealed a persistent narrowing of creative pathways despite strong early creative preferences. Just 3.8% of students pursuing higher education had made a creative subject choice at age 16.

Economically disadvantaged students were slightly more likely to make a creative subject choice at 16, but this reversed sharply post-16, with financial barriers, lack of cultural capital, and limited access to portfolio-building experiences cited as significant obstacles. Students from more deprived areas showed lower sustained creative participation. Participants attributed this to unequal access to cultural capital, resources, and early creative opportunities.

Girls showed stronger early preferences and were more likely to make a creative subject choice at age 16 and post16, yet this reversed in higher education and employment due in part to family resistance and concerns about economic precarity. Girls who faced economic disadvantage were consistently less likely than their similar counterparts to make creative subject choices.

Further education emerged as an important yet sometimes undervalued route into creative study, particularly for disadvantaged learners, yet progression from further education into creative higher education remains limited due to structural barriers. Higher education degrees were valuable for accessing creative occupations.

What are the implications?

Across the system, institutional cultures, resource differences, and structural inequalities restrict sustained engagement with creative subjects and limit entry into creative employment. Cross-sector collaboration, the removal of hierarchies between subjects, further and higher education, and accurate and timely information and support to students could address these inequalities.