Welcome back to the 2025-2026 academic year.
Careers Guidance
Kristoffer Harries is the school’s named Careers Leader and his email contact is: kharries@manoracademysale.org and can be reached via the school office on 0161 532 3251
Provider Access Statement - Manor Academy 25-26
Mick McHugh is the school’s Independent Careers Advisor and his contact details are: Mick.McHugh@traffordconnexions.co.uk Tel: 0161 911 8616.
Statutory Guidance for Schools and Colleges
Careers guidance and access for education and training providers - GOV.UK
The government has established statutory guidance for schools and colleges to ensure they provide effective careers guidance. Key points include:
- Legal Framework: Schools are required to follow this guidance, which outlines their responsibilities in delivering careers education and support.
- Gatsby Benchmarks: Schools are encouraged to adopt the Gatsby Benchmarks, a framework for best practices in careers education, to enhance the quality of guidance provided.
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Careers Leaders: Schools must appoint a dedicated Careers Leader to oversee the careers program and ensure compliance with the guidance.
Gatsby benchmarks
At Manor Academy we use the Gatsby Benchmarks to measure the quality of our provision. A link to these and our benchmarking results to date can be seen by clicking on the following links:
Manor Academy Gatsby Results
A stable careers programme
Labour Market Information
Simply put, LMI is when the skills and experience offered by people looking for work matches what the employer needs and both parties are in agreement on the wages, hours and conditions, everyone is happy.
The average person in the UK spends 80,000 hours over a lifetime in work – approximately 30 years! The rise in average lifespans means that this is likely to increase in future. Young people today are expected to work for longer than any generation in history. Therefore, wouldn’t it be great to find a job or career that you love considering you will be working in that area for so long! Decisions which affect our careers are amongst the most important and influential choices we can make.
A young person might only want to consider a job in Manchester City Council but being open to commuting or even relocating will open up a much wider choice of roles.
- https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/skills-england
- Get Britain Working: Labour Market Insights October 2025 - GOV.UK
- GM Labour Market Insights Pack Autumn 2025
- careers-labour-market-info-2022.pdf
- greater-manchester-local-skills-report-and-labour-market-plan-march-2021 (1).pdf
Where will the jobs be?
An ongoing demand to develop new technologies creates new opportunities but some roles are edged out too – just think about jobs that were commonplace a decade ago that are now done by machines! A huge growth in the knowledge-based industries means that more jobs today require specific and technical skills and often a higher qualification level.
Creative and digital, information and communication technology, hi-tech engineering, life sciences and tourism are all examples of sectors which contribute hugely to the UK economy and a lot of the new jobs available to young people will be in these industries. A relatively new sector often termed the ‘green economy’, offers a variety of roles which will help the government meet its environmental targets.
We’ll also see demand for people to join the hospitality, construction, agritech and logistics sectors – some will be into new jobs such as in hotels and leisure activities, other vacancies will be to replace those who retire or move on. And with life expectancy growing there’ll be a huge demand for care and health workers across a range of jobs.
It’s important to remember that employers across all sectors are crying out for young people to replace those who leave even if they aren’t creating new jobs and they’re also looking to create more diverse workforces.
Think beyond what you consider to be a ‘typical’ job in a sector – manufacturing, for example, has some hugely exciting jobs waiting for creative young people and the construction industry desperately needs people in non-manual roles such as project management. Discover more about the top 5 sectors across Greater Manchester on GMACS.
Careers Overview
In Key stage 3 Careers forms part of the school curriculum and is taught as a discrete lesson to all pupils. In years 10 and 11 careers are taught as part of the PSHCE programme of study. ASDAN work related units form the basis of these lessons. Post 16 opportunities for tailored work placements and vocational opportunities build on our effective careers programme.
Addressing the needs of each student
Students have different amounts career guidance at different stages of their time with us. Opportunities for advice and support are tailored to the needs of each student and our careers programme promotes and supports equality and diversity considerations throughout.
Linking curriculum learning to careers
The Skills Builder Partnership works with schools and colleges to ensure that every child and young person builds the essential skills that they need to succeed.
The challenge
There is a real challenge that young people are not getting the opportunities they need to build the essential skills that they need in order to thrive in the wider world. We see this framed in three broad challenges:
• Learning in the classroom: Often children and young people struggle to organise their work, articulate their ideas or work with others in a productive way.
• Thriving in further or higher education: These institutions often reflect that their students struggle without the additional support structures that schools put around them.
• Successful transitions in the working world: Employers frequently call for a greater focus on broad transferable skills that support employability.
The Essential Skills
Although the language and terminology in this area can often be confusing, over the last five years we have carried out a comprehensive set of reviews of essential skills. We define essential skills as ‘those highly transferable skills that almost everyone needs to do almost every job’ and which in turn support the application of knowledge and technical skills. We found that although there is great variation in the language, there are four broad areas that fulfil that definition: communication skills, self-management skills, interpersonal skills, and creative / problem-solving. We balance nuance and pragmatism to focus on eight essential skills, with a pair of skills focused on each of those four broad themes. This gives us:
At Manor
Here at Manor Academy we have been working towards achieving Skills Builder Gold award.
The Skills Builder framework is becoming embedded into our Skills Builder curriculum for Key Stage 3. We are also seeing it incorporated across the schools within each curriculum area.
We also crash the timetable for all learners at least once a term for our pupils to take part in the Skills Builder Challenge Day’s. All the pupils are fully engaged and are given the opportunity to focus on each of the essential skills during the challenge days.
Experience of workplaces
At Manor Academy we have a work experience programme that creates bespoke work placements catering for pupils interests and abilities. This builds over time to create a variety of experiences. In Manor College pupils are given the opportunity of extended work placements at Manchester Metropolitan University through the bridging the gap initiative link to Bridging The Gap
Encounters with employers and employees
At Manor Academy we invite employers and employees into school to deliver workshops and talks to our students. We also take students into a variety of workplaces and careers events to meet employers and employees. Enterprise activities are also embedded into our KS3 curriculum and our Vocational curriculum in KS4 and KS5.
We also invite past students to talk to our current students about moving on, career choices and life experiences since leaving Manor Academy.
For our local employers:
As an employer, what is your average employee age? How stable is your workforce over the next 10–15 years? Do you find it difficult to recruit qualified staff? How do you recruit apprentices? If any on these questions are on your lips as an employer, then you need our help as much as we need yours.
Working together with schools is now much more than simply meeting corporate social responsibilities. You need our children to develop the skills required to solve your industry challenges. Manor Academy are keen to develop links with employers and would welcome any enquiries. If you feel you may be able to support our careers programme, please use the email below. Any employers who have worked with our school and have any feedback about our careers programme, please email:
Encounters with further and higher education
Our careers programme is designed to ensure that all students understand the full range of learning opportunities that are available to them. This includes both academic and vocational routes and learning in schools, colleges, universities and in the workplace.
For our families:
Manor Academy welcome feedback from students and their families. If any students, parents or carers have any feedback about our careers programmes please email:
For our teachers:
Please look at all the useful information about Careers on the school website, including the Aims & Objectives, Careers Curriculum (which has a link to the Careers Programme), CDI Careers Framework, Gatsby Benchmarks, Responsibilities, Useful Careers Resources & Websites and Work Related Learning sections.
The Useful Careers Resources & Websites section may be of particular interest in helping you to link careers to your subject area, as Careers is a whole school responsibility. There are links to the Careers software packages that school purchases each year. To access many short videos linking your subject to different careers you may also find the listed icould website useful, as this allows you to search by subject area and view the available career options:
We welcome regular feedback
The following links also provide useful sources of independent advice:
Online Resources
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National Careers Service |
https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/explore-careers
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Greater Manchester Apprenticeship and Careers Service |
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Discover your interests and what you could do – real life career videos and ideas for your future |
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Progress Careers |
https://progress-careers.co.uk/services/
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Search job profiles |
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Explore careers and the world of work |
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Career Pilot – A website with a wealth of useful careers information. A website that helps you explore your career options and find courses and jobs in the UK. |
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Find an apprenticeship - Use this service to search and apply for apprenticeships in England. |
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Careers Box – Thinking about your career’s choices? Looking for some inspiration? |
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BBC Bitesize - Whether you're deciding what to study, planning your future career or just curious about the world of work, we're here to help with advice from experts and from young people who've found a path that suits them. |
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Greater Jobs - Whether you are looking for your first job, a career change or an exciting new role, we have opportunities at every level on greater.jobs, from apprenticeships right up to senior management and in a wide range of career sectors. |
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Indeed – Job search by indeed |