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27 April 2026
Read time: 9mins
‘Our students want to explore and actively seek out information on different jobs, careers, salaries and progression routes, but do not know where to get this information from.’
Rouna Ali
Embedding careers in geography lessons
My session ‘Teaching careers in geography’ covering how to embed careers education within KS3, KS4 and KS5 geography lessons at the Geographical Association Annual Conference that took place in Sheffield in April 2026 proved popular with delegates. It was one of several sessions on the topic of geography and careers and how together they really do make a difference to the lives of our young people in keeping with the presidential theme for 2026 ‘Geography makes a difference‘.
For almost 20 years I have worked with children and young people as either a professional level 6 qualified careers guidance adviser or geography teacher in secondary school and other community settings within the West London Boroughs of Hillingdon, Harrow, Brent and Ealing.
As geography teachers we are already under immense pressures from various sources to include so much in our lessons: starter do now questions, ‘think’ ‘turn’ ‘talk’ for developing oracy skills, exam style questions, scaffolding etc. Including embedding careers education into geography lessons in addition could be seen as an onerous task!
However, I would argue that embedding careers education is the most important thing alongside providing a high-quality geography education. The main reason for this is because our students want to explore and actively seek out information on different jobs, careers, salaries and progression routes, but do not know where to get this information from.
Their school in all honesty may not have a careers adviser due to public funding cuts and even if there is one, not all students in every year group are provided with a 1:1 careers guidance interview.
Our students have two extremely complex and ever-changing worlds to navigate their way through. The ‘real world’ and ‘online world’. We cannot allow students to get all their careers information (often misinformation) from social media and platforms such as TikTok. In fact make that three worlds with the ‘world of work’ these days being just as challenging as the geographical world it is part of.
In my session I explained this to delegates and that on a practical level embedding careers can be done without significantly adding to one’s workload once you know what to include and how to embed it. Teachers’ workload has been a political issue for a very long time and it still is. Being mindful of this and because of my careers advice and guidance background, I presented how for example in any one lesson in a chosen scheme of learning, just one PowerPoint slide’s worth of careers information would be enough to potentially spark the fire in the bellies of our young people.
Empower your students to do their own career exploration
Encourage and empower students to carry on with their own career exploration (this is one of the three main aims of Careers Education Information Advice and Guidance CEIAG, the other two being to increase the students’ level of self-awareness and career management skills). This will help students to further investigate and research long term job and career ideas so that they can make more informed careers related decisions for their futures.
As teachers we at least need to start them off by giving them these ideas. Artificial Intelligence can help a great deal here as no one is expected to be a labour market guru or expert on careers anymore – just ask and quality assess the results from searches on AI platforms, such as Google AI mode, ChatGPT, CoPilot etc.
Do your own careers research
On this one PowerPoint slide I would include certain key information. Firstly do your own research and choose a job that is directly linked to the lesson topic or scheme of learning. Ask yourself a few ethical questions: will this raise my students’ aspirations? Help them with social mobility? What obstacles and barriers will my students face trying to enter this area of work? Are live vacancies for this job (or similar roles), available and realistically attainable for my young people? Check this on the main job seeking websites in the UK such as Indeed and Totaljobs.
One of the delegates in my session also spoke and delivered her own session at the GA Conference about her year 9 scheme of learning on the geography of health. Immediately I thought of the job role of a public health professional. These professionals in the words of the NHS ‘play a vital role in protecting and improving the health of individuals, communities and entire populations’ and so are overseeing areas of various sizes and geographical scales from local, regional, national and global. To become one would require higher education, work experience and possibly worldwide travel.
This delegate worked in a private school based in SE London so for her students this is both an appropriately aspirational yet also realistic career ambition for them to further explore, plan for and obtain. As with our geography education, careers education also has to be made accessible for and tailored towards our specific student demographic.
Download the above example careers PowerPoint slide here.
Salaries and job role outlines in career discussions
Secondly the starting salary or salary range should be included with a short video showing ‘a day in the life of…’ to bring the career to life. Briefly outlining the day-to-day tasks of a particular job role achieves many significant things. It would dispel any myths and stereotypes surrounding the job and help students to understand the reality of specific careers rather than indulge in fantasies. Children can sometimes get wrapped up in these because they have not experienced the real world yet and they could be relying too much on social media as the main source of their careers information.
Clear job outlines encourage students to think about the advantages and disadvantages of the role and assess whether they would be suited to it in future. It would also make students think about how geography and fieldwork knowledge and skills are strongly connected and linked to that particular career.
Discussing the salary is also important because young people often think about and want to talk about money more than teacher’s assume and it would be wise not to shut down or shy away from debates concerning money, cost of living, standard of living and quality of life as part of a students’ wider PSHCE curriculum which increasingly includes financial literacy these days.
A homework task
Finally, I would include a possible homework task for students to find out for example:
‘How would a young person become (whichever job was discussed in your geography lesson e.g. Public Health Professional), in the UK in 2026?’
This would instil the development of career management skills in your students who would soon realise the fact that if they are interested in any particular job, they will have to start creating an action plan and pathway with an appropriate timeline in order to pursue that career idea and ultimately achieve their goals and ambitions for their future.
Written by Rouna Ali, Careers Adviser and Geography Teacher
©Rouna Ali, and the Geographical Association 2026.
