Building career-ready skills and confidence

Trinity’s new white paper, Career-Ready: Bridging the Employability Skills and Confidence Gap, brings together insights from over 1,500 young people and 800 secondary school teachers across multiple subjects on the skills that matter most for work readiness and career success.

Our research highlights both a confidence and skills gap reported by young people as they transition from education to employment, and explores the role of performance and creative education such as music, drama and dance in closing those gaps, building transferable life skills like communication, creativity, collaboration and adaptability, which are increasingly recognised as essential for success in work and life.

The findings highlight that performance and creative education offers a proven solution in enabling and empowering young people to be better prepared and more confident for the world of work. Students who participated in music, drama, or dance education, beyond compulsory schooling, demonstrate significantly higher workplace confidence and readiness for work.

Performance and creative arts students feel more confident and better prepared for work (65% vs 46%) and show stronger belief in their transferable skills (96% vs 86%). This “confidence shield” reduces anxiety across all workplace scenarios, with young people that had some performance and creative arts education 14 percentage points less likely to worry about sharing different opinions and 12 points less anxious about presenting work.

Teachers echo these findings, describing performance and creative education as a vital way to build transferable life skills such as resilience, teamwork and problem-solving, the capabilities most valued by employers.

Speaking about the research, Erez Tocker, Chief Executive of Trinity College London, said:

“At Trinity College London, we support educators and learners in developing human expression and building these capabilities. Our syllabuses and assessments are designed to recognise technical and academic capabilities but also embed these wider human transferrable skills. And while education policy continues to evolve, one thing is constant; the need for fair access to performance and creative learning, and for trusted ways to demonstrate progress in the skills that matter most.”

Why these skills matter

The report explores the growing importance of “transferable life skills” in a world transformed by technology and rapid change. It helps confirm that performance and creative education provides authentic opportunities for learners to communicate, collaborate and think creatively, skills that cannot be replaced by automation and that underpin long-term employability and wellbeing.

Part of Trinity’s wider mission

For more than 150 years, Trinity College London has helped learners around the world develop and evidence these skills through its assessments and qualifications in music, drama and English language. The research forms part of Trinity’s ongoing commitment to champion performance and creative education and to demonstrate its impact on both individual learners and society.

• Discover more about how Trinity College London designs and assesses performance and creative education qualifications.
• Out now! Access your free copy of the Career-Ready research report below