Taking a moment to look back on a busy year at Pathways, I’m really proud of what we’re building and grateful for continued growth across both FE and HE. Thanks to our brilliant clients for helping us maintain that momentum.
Year on year growth
At Pathways, we’ve continued our strong growth in the FE and HE sectors this year, with a net year-on-year increase of 21%. We’re really looking forward to building on this momentum in the year ahead.
Insights from usage across 2025
From Pathways One:
- 19 million career views
- 16 million subject views
- 40 million student interactions
- 42,000 pages with Pathways One embedded
Education, education, education
Careers such as Software Developers (974k views) and Graphic Designers (798k views) continue to dominate student interest. However, this year we’ve seen a clear shift towards education careers.
Teaching roles jumped into the top five most viewed careers:
- Primary teachers moved from 5th place in 2024 to 3rd (651k views)
- Secondary teachers made an even bigger leap, rising from 13th to 4th place (524k views)
At the same time, interest in Nursing dropped from 3rd place to 8th this year (431k views).
Top sector trends
While Software Developer remains the single most-viewed career, a different picture emerges when we group interest by sector.
Last year, Nursing, Therapy & Care was the most viewed sector, with Childcare, Education & Training in second place. This year, that ranking has shifted.
Childcare, Education & Training has moved into first place, driven by growing interest in teaching roles, with over 2 million career views.
Building Trades now sits in second place with 1.8 million views, while Nursing, Therapy & Care has dropped to third.
Interestingly, Computing & IT ranks only 6th when career interest is grouped by primary sector.
Pathways Explore & the Profile Quiz
Our Profile Quiz was taken 40,000 times by students looking to discover careers aligned to their interests.
The most common personality type was “Persuader” - described as dominant, adventurous and enthusiastic - with 10,000 students assigned this profile.
Looking ahead to 2026 reports
Keep an eye out for our Student Choices reports in 2026, where we’ll share deeper insight and analysis. Or better still, come and hear one of our conference talks.
FE Student Choices Survey
In 2025 we launched our FE Student Choices Survey, with:
- 1,500+ students taking part
- Representation from 33 colleges
- £400 in Amazon vouchers awarded as student prizes
We released our Understanding Student Choices reports exploring what really influences Further Education students when choosing courses and careers.
System upgrade
Over the summer, we rolled out a major Pathways system update, including:
- Significant behind-the-scenes improvements
- Updated interfaces for Pathways One and Pathways Graduate, introducing imagery, video and employment data
- A completely refreshed Pathways admin system
- Welsh language support
- Improved reporting on how Pathways is embedded on your website, including viewport sessions and average dwell time
What’s next?
- Pathways Insights - we’re working on a new product that opens up the data “under the bonnet”, giving visibility across careers, courses, progression, employment and demand
- We’ve just launched this year’s FE Student Choices Survey and look forward to sharing the findings and reports in early 2026
- We’re proud to be returning to support HELOA in January
- In February, we’ll be back at our favourite FE conference with the College Marketing Network, where we’ll be speaking, exhibiting, and sponsoring the FE First Award for Small Marketing Team of the Year
Thank you
Finally, a huge thank you to all our clients for your continued support, trust and feedback throughout the year.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.
