Breaking Down Barriers: Socioeconomic Mobility and Creating Inclusive Career Pathways

In this exclusive feature to mark Tomorrow’s Engineers Week, Mat Parker, Head of Careers and Inclusion at the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB), brings together leading voices committed to improving socioeconomic mobility and broadening access to rewarding, inclusive careers.

With the engineering construction industry expected to need thousands of extra workers by 2030, it’s hugely important to reach a wider, more diverse talent pool. Mat is joined by Charlie Stainforth, CEO & Co-Founder, Circl, Rachel Boani, STEM Programme Manager, upReach, and Erica Chamberlain, Head of Strategic Business Partnerships, The Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC), to explore how to remove barriers to opportunity, improve access to high-quality training and careers, and ensure talent is recognised regardless of background.

Why does socioeconomic mobility matter for employers and the future workforce? 

Mat: Talent and potential are distributed across every community, but opportunity is not. Employers who actively remove barriers to recruitment gain access to a wider and more diverse talent pool at a time when many sectors face significant skills shortages.

A workforce that reflects the diversity of society is more likely to bring different perspectives, improve innovation, strengthen problem-solving and create more resilient organisations.

Helping ensure that a young person’s future is determined by their potential and ambition, rather than their postcode, family income or personal circumstances, benefits individuals, employers and the wider economy.

Charlie: Limiting recruitment to more traditional pipelines means employers miss out on a wider range of highly capable and resilient individuals. Expanding access to a wider range of applicants gives employers a competitive edge in a tight labour market. 

Teams made up of people from diverse backgrounds bring a greater range of life experiences and approaches, lessening the chance of ‘groupthink’.

Today’s workforce also expects their employers to show a genuine and consistent approach to inclusion and social impact. Embracing social mobility helps motivate teams and boost morale, while increasing retention.

Rachel: Employers who want the best talent pools can’t afford to overlook people from any social background. This matters even more as employers plan for the future, because the fastest growing sectors will shape who get tomorrow’s jobs.

The Sutton Trust’s Elitist Britain 2025 found “only one in six [tech] executives view improving socioeconomic workforce diversity as a top priority”. If fast-growing sectors like tech don’t open up now, the barriers students face today risk becoming further entrenched into the workforce of the future.

By investing in socioeconomic mobility, employers can widen talent pipelines, strengthen their future workforce and ensure recruitment and progression are based on potential rather than privilege.

Erica: We increasingly have evidence of the difference high-quality careers education can make. It can help make opportunities visible much earlier and enable more young people, whatever their background, to see where their talents could take them. 

The CEC’s Employer Standards evidence shows that 83% of business owners and senior leaders believe well-designed work experience is an effective way to attract entry-level employees. In Alan Milburn’s Young People and Work Review, employers identified a lack of work experience as the biggest barrier to young people’s employment opportunities, with 27% citing it as a key challenge.

This underlines the importance of ensuring every young person has access to meaningful workplace experiences.For sectors facing skills shortages, that is particularly important. If employers only reach young people who already know about their industry, understand the routes into it or have personal connections, they risk overlooking a huge pool of potential talent.

What barriers do people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds continue to face? 

Mat: Barriers can include limited awareness of career opportunities, fewer professional networks, reduced access to role models, financial constraints that restrict extracurricular activities or work experience, and lower confidence in navigating recruitment processes that were not designed to be wholly equitable.

For many young people, a lack of direct contact with industry means they may never consider certain careers as realistic options. Widening participation requires more than raising awareness; it requires actively addressing the structural barriers that prevent individuals from accessing opportunities.

Our ECITB Horizons strategic, programmatic approach to supporting STEM and careers engagement across key industrial clusters aims to connect young people, including those from a marginalised background, with employers, role models and careers opportunities to help build a more diverse future workforce.

Erica: Disadvantage is not simply about aspiration. Young people can have enormous ambition and potential while still facing different levels of access to the experiences, information and connections that help turn those ambitions into opportunities. 

That is why what happens through schools and colleges is so important. Careers education can help level that playing field by systematically connecting young people with employers, workplaces and a much broader range of career possibilities, while building the knowledge, skills, confidence and networks that contribute to career readiness. 

CEC’s Ready for Work research found that the positive effect of high-quality careers provision on career readiness can more than compensate for the lower levels of career readiness reported by students receiving free school meals.

Charlie: Many high-paying or competitive careers rely heavily on informal networks (who you know). Individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds often lack access to professional mentors or industry connections.

Corporate jargon and unspoken workplace norms can also create invisible barriers to entry and progression, making qualified individuals feel out of place. Inclusive leadership is not just about bringing people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds through the door but about finding consistent ways to support them going forward in their role. 

Rachel: Unequal access to career opportunities is a significant barrier. Financial pressures can prevent students from pursuing the careers they want, particularly where opportunities involve unpaid or low-paid experience, travel or relocation. This can mean that students with fewer financial resources have fewer opportunities to build the experience and networks that employers often look for.

upReach is advocating for a ban on unpaid internships as part of efforts to remove financial barriers to accessing early career opportunities, ensuring that opportunities are accessible based on potential, rather than someone’s ability to afford to work for free.

How can schools, employers and third-sector organisations collaborate to create more equitable opportunities?

Mat: Schools provide access to young people and help identify those who may benefit most from additional support. Employers bring real-world insight, role models, workplace experiences and a clear understanding of skills requirements. Third-sector organisations often have trusted relationships with underrepresented and marginalised communities and the necessary expertise to support individuals facing complex barriers.

The three achieve the greatest impact when they work together. Effective collaboration might include employer-led mentoring programmes, industry engagement events, STEM outreach activities, workplace visits, careers ambassador programmes and targeted interventions for underrepresented groups.

Erica: The strongest careers systems are built around partnership to support young people. There is encouraging progress on this front. Students in 68% of schools now have ten or more encounters with employers by the time they leave school. But the next challenge is making sure the quality and impact of those encounters is consistently high.

CEC has developed Employer Standards to provide a clear framework to businesses of all shapes and sizes to maximise the impact of employer engagement with young people, ensuring mutual value and long-term business success.

Careers Hubs have an important convening role, helping schools, colleges and employers work together locally and connecting careers provision to skills needs. 

Rachel: Collaboration works best when it’s joined up. Together with employers, third-sector organisations can create more joined-up pathways into sectors that have historically been less accessible to people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Third-sector organisations like upReach can connect students with employers. Our Professional Mentoring Programme connects associates with professionals for three or six months, providing industry insight, career guidance and access to professional networks.

Employers providing insight days, office visits and networking events can help students understand workplace culture, meet hiring teams, learn about recruitment processes and build confidence.  

Charlie: Employers and charities can partner with local schools to deliver industry workshops, career talks and skills sessions long before students enter the job market. This helps to bring the working world closer to young people and communities, breaking down barriers and misconceptions.

Creating clear, fully funded routes such as degree apprenticeships and paid traineeships can also help to bridge the gap between education and employment. 

How can mentoring, work experience and inclusive recruitment improve career outcomes? 

Mat: Together, these approaches can help level the playing field by reducing barriers to entry and progression.

Mentoring helps individuals build confidence, access advice and develop professional networks they may not otherwise have. It can provide valuable insight into workplace expectations and career progression opportunities.

Work experience allows young people to see careers first-hand, develop employability skills and make informed choices about their future. For many, it represents their first meaningful interaction with an industry or employer.

Inclusive recruitment ensures that organisations attract talent based on potential and capability rather than prior advantage. This can include using accessible language in job descriptions, focusing on transferable skills, reducing unnecessary entry requirements, widening routes into employment and ensuring selection processes are fair and transparent.

Charlie: Mentoring helps young people have ‘someone in their corner’, demystifying different industries and equipping them with the social capital needed to navigate professional spaces successfully.

Work experience lets someone see first-hand how professionals interact and work together, something that many young adults missed out on during lockdown and with the move to more remote working. 

Moving toward skills-based assessment and standardising interview processes levels the playing field so candidates are judged on potential rather than privilege.

Rachel: The three approaches can reinforce each other: mentoring can help a student understand how to navigate a sector and make more informed decisions; work experience can give them the opportunity to apply that learning in practice; and inclusive recruitment can help ensure they are assessed fairly when applying for roles.

Work experience, for example, gives students the opportunity to turn potential into evidence, helping them demonstrate their capabilities to employers. upReach’s data shows that 92% of students who complete a professional experience week go on to make a successful graduate or internship application.

Erica: Spending time with an employer can be transformative for a young person, but simply being present in a workplace is not enough. The experience needs a clear purpose, meaningful interaction and opportunities for young people to develop and reflect on what they have learned. 

That is why we increasingly talk about modern work experience. Rather than seeing work experience as a single, traditional placement, we should think about a progressive series of experiences throughout a young person’s education. These can help young people build knowledge of workplaces, essential skills, confidence and connections over time.

Our equalex framework helps employers benchmark and improve the accessibility and inclusivity of their work experience offer, helping to ensure opportunities are available to a broader and more diverse range of young people.

By Mat Parker, Head of Careers and Inclusion at the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB); Charlie Stainforth, CEO & Co-Founder of Circl; Rachel Boani, STEM Programme Manager of upReach, and Erica Chamberlain, Head of Strategic Business Partnerships at The Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC)