About the Suffolk Skills and Careers Festival

Are you looking to find a career or apprenticeship after school or further education? Maybe you're considering your education options or post 16 progression?

Then come along to the Suffolk Skills and Careers Festival and 'try before you buy', speak to over 80 employers, and discover careers you didn't know existed. 

In Suffolk we have some fantastic opportunities for employment across a range of burgeoning industry sectors. By bringing together employers, schools, colleges and training providers, Suffolk Skills and Careers Festival builds on the success of previous Skills Shows and offers you the chance to work out which careers are of interest to you and match your strengths, then find out the best route to get the right skills for the job.

The Suffolk Skills and Careers Festival, being held on Wednesday 11th October 2023, welcomes around 4000 students from over 40 schools. Students attending the event have the opportunity to meet with over 80 employers from 14 key sectors committed to growing talent locally. The emphasis, for employers, is on engagement, raising aspiration and fostering ambition rather than recruitment.

The sectors represented included:

• Advanced Manufacturing & Engineering
• Health & Social Care
• Professional Services
• Careers Advice
• Food & Farming
• Public Services
• Construction
• ICT - Digital & Creative
• Retail
• Education & Training
• Leisure & Tourism
• Other
• Energy
• Ports & Logistics

What's on offer?

The Suffolk Skills and Careers Festival is the largest employer-led skills and careers events held in the area.  

The event offers young people, and those within their sphere of influence, the opportunity to ‘have a go’ at a range of work related skills, speak to employers from all over Suffolk, many with global operations. It will offer the chance to look at specific careers, talk to people already doing the jobs, and gain an understanding of the routes in to employment or further education.  

For employers the show provides a unique opportunity to showcase their businesses and industry to a large number of local young people, meeting and shaping the employees of the future.

For a list of organisations attending the event that are profiled here, on icanbea... just click here.

Schools

The event is designed to inspire the ambitions of young people opening their minds to the possibilities their futures could hold.

The event supports schools and colleges which are required to meet government expectations related to Gatsby Benchmark scoring.

This is a framework of eight guidelines that define the best career provision in schools and colleges:

1. Stable careers programme
2. Learning from career and labour market information
3. Addressing the needs of each pupil
4. Linking curriculum learning to careers
5. Encounters with employers and employees
6. Experiences of workplaces
7. Encounters with further and higher education
8. Personal guidance

The government careers’ strategy is built around the framework and this event offers a sterling opportunity to inform the planning and improvement of participating schools’ career programmes.  Feedback from schools and careers’ advisors confirms the event contributed to them being able to meet benchmarks 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 & 8.

For more information on booking and potential travel subsidies, please take a look at the website.

Exhibitor Information

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