Reimagining employability: a case study on creative higher education

In my accompanying remarks at the UNITAR Academic Leadership Conference, I challenged the UK sector's overly narrow focus on graduate salaries and immediate workforce readiness as the primary gauges of degree value. As AI reshapes the employment landscape, we must look beyond rigid metrics to measure success – while equipping students to articulate the specialised skills and adaptable capabilities built during their studies to secure their long-term career growth. A core theme of this conference was the global recognition that flexibility, adaptability and critical thinking are competencies our graduates possess across the globe, yet not all employability activities support students to recognise these and be able to articulate them at interview. 

To illustrate this argument, I drew upon creative higher education as a primary case study.

Reimagining employability in creative arts degrees

Amid rapid technological shifts and changing learner expectations, higher education stands at a pivotal crossroads. To prepare students for the future, we must move beyond a narrow, transactional view of employability that links specific qualifications to specific early-career jobs. Higher education is a transformative journey that equips individuals with lifelong resilience, creative thinking, and adaptable capabilities.

GuildHE represents a wide spectrum of UK higher education providers, spanning small specialist institutions to large universities. Renowned for practical, industry-relevant education and practice-based research, our members provide a unique perspective on the UK HE sector's key opportunities and challenges. Our members serve a number of professions, but many are specialist creative institutions.

We believe that:

• HE builds people: It is not only about what you study, but also about who you become.
• HE powers the UK: Every breakthrough starts with knowledge, driving economic growth and innovation.
• HE opens doors: Where you start should not determine how far you can go; higher education promotes opportunity and social mobility.
• HE strengthens society: It works for everyone, providing a key pipeline for public service professionals and civic life.

Authentic learning and real-world impact

While professional, statutory, and regulatory bodies oversee specific fields in the UK, they do not cover all disciplines. For the most part, UK degrees are viewed primarily as academic qualifications rather than direct career training.

Specialist and practice-based creative institutions in the UK therefore lead the way in embedding professional standards directly into the curriculum through employer co-design and authentic assessment methods such as live briefs. Rather than hypothetical assignments, live briefs challenge students to deliver real-world solutions under commercial constraints.

Examples of these across our membership include:

• Arts University Plymouth × Finisterre: BA (Hons) Textile Design graduate Ayesha King collaborated with Finisterre’s Seasuit Project to develop a modest wetsuit for Muslim women, allowing them to engage in water sports while honouring cultural dress requirements - a product now sold nationwide.
• Norwich University of the Arts × Safe In Our World: Games Art, Design, and Development students partnered with the video games mental health charity to produce concept art and playable game prototypes exploring the link between nature and mental wellbeing.
• Leeds Arts University × Ezili: Fashion Photography students executed a live commercial brief for swimwear brand Ezili, resulting in the winning photograph being featured on a Times Square billboard in New York.

Many more of these examples can be found in our 2024 Value of Creative Graduates report.

Institutional governance serves as another key avenue through which specialist institutions extend their impact beyond curriculum delivery. Industry professionals sit on governing boards, practitioners are part of academic staff teams, and vice-chancellors maintain active professional practice. This ensures our academic environments are intertwined with professional standards, and enhance the industries we serve through our research and innovation work.

Preparing graduates for life: articulating transferable skills

As artificial intelligence disrupts early-career roles and the nature of work evolves, preparing students for their long-term future is paramount. However, graduates do not always fully understand or articulate the transferable capabilities such as lifelong adaptability, social consciousness, and resilience that define the transformative value of a degree.

In the UK, creative qualifications are sometimes dismissed as frivolous, yet their core capabilities are vital. According to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report, creative thinking ranks as the #4 core skill globally across all industries. Creative arts degrees instil essential problem-solving, critical thinking, and communication skills. Helping students articulate these transferable strengths ensures entering non-creative fields is never seen as a compromise and unlocks graduate potential across the wider workforce.

Institutions like the University of the Arts London use frameworks such as their Creative Attributes Framework to embed resilience, agility, and enterprise into their degrees, helping graduates articulate their transferable strengths within and beyond the creative industries.

Higher education must balance immediate workforce needs with cultivating lifelong capabilities. By recognising student diversity, building social and cultural capital, and providing practical exposure to subject-specific and transferable skills, we prepare graduates to be resilient, confident, and meaningful contributors to both the economy and society.