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Real industry experience still often depends on a student's network, timetable, or confidence. Graduate Futures 2026 proved the sector knows this. The harder question is what to do about it. We wrote up our practical answer, and it starts with one pilot.

35% of employers rate new graduates below expectations on adapting to workplace demands. 77% say work experience makes graduates better prepared. Graduate Futures 2026 confirmed what most careers teams already know. The question is not whether work-based learning matters. It is how to reach every student, not just those who can access a placement. Download our post-conference resources to see how one university solved it.

Five themes came through clearly at Graduate Futures 2026: work-based learning for all, employability embedded in curriculum, outcomes over participation numbers, flexible access, and delivery models that do not break your team. We have summarised each theme with practical actions and included the University of Leeds session presentation as a proof point. Download both resources now.

At Graduate Futures 2026, the University of Leeds showed what guaranteed industry experience for every postgraduate student looks like in practice. 1,300 students. 198 industry partners. 90% completion. We co-presented that session. We have written it all up. Download the post-conference key takeaways and the full session presentation to see the model, the data and the five sector themes.

This one question keeps coming back to me in 2026, regarding employability: if the industry demands job-ready graduates, are we providing job-ready education? What do you think? Well, here is where I sit with it. Being in the education and international education business for 10+ years, and having also spent time in the corporate world building efficient teams, recruiting people, and impacting growth and bottom lines, one thing has become very hard to ignore once you’ve sat on both sides of the table. Education is no longer just about learning. In these changing times, especially with AI reshaping the landscape around us, education has to be about outcomes. For most people embarking on the educational journey, that outcome is linked to employability, entrepreneurship, starting a business, or making an impact. But the common thread underneath all of them is this: If learning does not transform into a real-world outcome, it stays trapped as a library. Interesting to read. Impossible to act on. Recently, I was speaking with an educator at a small but ambitious institution. And the conversation led to something I do keep hearing often these days: “Sagar, we genuinely care about employability. But we find it hard to connect it consistently to what happens inside the classroom and, more importantly, scale it.” What I recommended to that institution, and what I believe more educators need to do, is this five-step shift: 1) Move beyond rankings and lead with outcomes. Guarantee every student industry experience. 2) Put industry experience into the curriculum, not as an add-on or an extracurricular activity. 3) Go beyond long internships and think in terms of short-term projects, innovation challenges, skill modules, and micro-projects with live industry partners. 4) Build a wider network of partners. Do not get stuck only on big brands. Startups, scale-ups, SMEs, and local companies can create real exposure and real-world thinking. 5) Make opportunities accessible to all, and use tech-enabled platforms or partners to launch quickly, even if it starts with a small pilot. Working closely in the Australian government-funded Study Australia Industry Experience Program, I saw an early programme involving around 500 students and 55 industry partners grow into a much larger model that reached approximately 7,300 students and nearly 1,000 industry partners. That scale did not come from trying to find 1,300 traditional internships. It came from redesigning what meaningful industry experience could look like. Short, structured projects. Real organisations. Real problems. Real deadlines. Real feedback. This is the shift I believe every institution and every educator needs to think about. If more institutions move industry experience to the front line of their offerings, they will move the dial more than anything else. And more importantly, they will give students what they actually came for. Free resource to get started: https://lnkd.in/gbnSUHXk

Real industry experience still often depends on a student's network, timetable, or confidence. Graduate Futures 2026 proved the sector knows this. The harder question is what to do about it. We wrote up our practical answer, and it starts with one pilot.