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Building a professional pathway for geography students into the built environment

Building a professional pathway for geography students into the built environment

16 March 2026

Read time: 7mins

‘I had repeated conversations with frustrated professionals from the sector about why teachers weren’t giving careers advice to their students. They couldn’t understand why we weren’t promoting careers as architectural technicians, quantity surveyors or facilities managers (the list goes on).’

Emma Meredith

What careers come from geography?

Why did you become a geography teacher? I have a really uninspiring reason, but bear with me, it gets better. I applied for a geography degree because I loved the subject. I still do. Mr Caush from Holy Family High School, Thornton always said that geographers make the best cocktail party guests. He said, ‘It’s because we know a little about a lot’. I liked the sound of that.

Having graduated in 1992, I had no clue about what to do with the rest of my life. Anyone who asked me what I was going to do with my geography degree finished their question with, ‘Teach?’ The answer was always a resounding ‘No!’ But I didn’t have any other answer as there wasn’t, and still isn’t, a ‘professional pathway’ for geographers.

Having fallen into a retail job that bored me witless, I applied for my PGCE and I haven’t been bored since. Three decades later and still, if you search BBC Bitesize for ‘jobs that use geography’, the first is secondary geography teacher. How sad is that? The geography students of now are those we are trusting to save the world; they need a professional pathway.

Why a professional pathway is vital

We already see a significant shrinkage from GCSE to A level in terms of numbers:

The GA report GCSE results analysis 2025 shows that GCSE numbers rose from 287,411 in 2024 to 302,706 in 2025.
This puts us in 6^th place behind the statutory exams and history.
BUT at A level our numbers have dropped from 36,314 in 2024 to 34,336 in 2025.
We are not only NOT in the top ten subjects but geography ‘now features in the top 10 subjects with decreasing entry’. What an awful Top Ten to be a part of!

While there are lots of subjects that are new to students at Post-16, I also think that the lack of a professional pathway for geographers is having a detrimental impact.

Geography does not currently have a natural professional pathway in the way that pure sciences or pure arts do. I think that this curtails many students from choosing it at key stage 4 and in particular key stage 5.

How many of you found that students would pick geography as their 4^th AS because they ‘love the subject’ but with no intention of it being in their A levels as their path was already mapped?

Gatsby benchmark 4 states, ‘As part of the school’s programme of careers education, all teachers should link curriculum learning with careers. Subject teachers should highlight the progression routes for their subject and the relevance of the knowledge and skills developed in their subject for a wide range of career pathways’.

This is my clarion call to us as a community to build a professional pathway for geography into the built environment.

Why a professional pathway into the built environment?

If we are to make geography into a natural professional pathway, we need to start long before Post-16 options come around.

I started working with the Built Environment Schools Trust in September 2025.

I had repeated conversations with frustrated professionals from the sector about why teachers weren’t giving careers advice to their students. They couldn’t understand why we weren’t promoting careers as architectural technicians, quantity surveyors or facilities managers (the list goes on).

I found myself repeating the truths that you all know: the hours we work, the hats we wear, the inability to even nip to the loo. It was so stark that I wrote a blog for the industry. It is a surprise to anyone outside of teaching that we don’t know about all of the careers open to students. But they make a good point and one that resonates with Time for Geography founders Rob Parker and Tim Parker in their GA Blog: Making geography a career defining subject… before it’s too late.

The World Bank states that 58% of the world’s population lives in urban areas. The World Population Review has the global population at 8.3 billion; 4.8 billion humans in cities.

Nearly 40% of global carbon emissions come from the built environment. The built environment uses half of materials extracted globally and creates 1/3 of the world’s waste (CIOB video). It is clear that a sustainable future in urban environments is a world-saving career; a natural professional pathway.

How the built environment is a natural professional pathway for geographers

The University of the Built Environment (I bet you didn’t know it even exists) describes six categories in the Built Environment Life Cycle:

Plan
Design
Construct
Use and occupation
Maintain and repair
Repurpose.

In each category there are a myriad of careers and the children in our classrooms know very few of them. Simply put, as busy teachers we don’t have the time to research them. For instance, would you have ever had the time to find The Chartered Institute of Builders careers video referenced earlier? Furthermore, in a packed curriculum we don’t feel we have the time to teach about them. However, if careers are integrated into the curriculum then we don’t need to build in extra time.

Most elements of our curriculum and specifications (both physical and human geography) can lead to sustainable built environment careers:

designing sponge-cities to both remove excess water and retain it for future use
designing buildings to reverse the urban heat island effect
planning 15-minute cities to increase the social and economic well-being of inhabitants
planning so that increasing urban populations have access to the key services that will determine quality of life
working within the circular economy promoting the reduce, reuse, recycle, renew ethos of mitigation and adaptation
examining coastal processes to protect the 15% of the population within 10 miles of the coast
and the list goes on and on.

The built environment yields the returns we need to meet all elements of Gatsby Benchmark 4.

Free and editable resources that build the professional pathway for you

At My Environment, My Future we design urban environment resources that have built environment careers running through them like a stick of rock! We believe that a professional pathway into the built environment is a no-brainer for geographers.

Our free award-winning competition is for students 8-18 and encourages fieldwork and geographical skills to solve Built Environment issues. This year the theme is Think Smart; Live Green (as pictured).

We have FREE and EDITABLE resources for key stages 2 and 3, GCSE and A level (all mapped to curriculum and specifications). These match urban environment themes as well as referencing a myriad of careers. They are editable so that you can adapt to your own context. We are developing place studies for A level; Copenhagen is on the site and Ebbsfleet and Trafford Therme will come next.

We are developing a Free Careers Library full of both general and specific advice and information (See Olivia’s profile). We also believe in signposting to assist teachers in finding further helpful resources. Our new signposts are in the Building Careers section.

Our resources are ALWAYS free and editable. We truly believe that if we are to build a professional pathway for geographers into the built environment then we need to help teachers in their busy lives. We must be capturing students from as early as possible.

If you are interested in joining us in ensuring a future for our planet and our subject, please let us know at info@memf.careers as we are always looking for schools to collaborate with and for your feedback.