For the University for the Creative Arts, helping students and parents understand the real value of a creative degree was key. With Pathways Graduate, they’ve brought clear, data-led career insight to the forefront of their course pages.
Choosing a creative course has always come with a big question: “Where will this take me?”
For prospective students, that question is important. For parents, it often comes down to confidence in future opportunities and employability.
That’s exactly the challenge the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) set out to address.
The challenge
Making career outcomes clearer - and more visible
UCA already had strong career content across their website, but they wanted to go further.
Creating meaningful, consistent careers content across a wide range of creative degree pages had been a challenge - particularly when trying to clearly demonstrate the outcomes of creative study.
They weren’t just looking to list potential careers, they wanted to bring them to life.
- To give proper visibility to the breadth of careers creative graduates go into
- To show that creative pathways aren’t linear (a strength)
- To challenge the perception that creative graduates struggle to find employment
- To make careers and outcomes a more prominent and engaging feature across course pages
Alongside this, there was a broader need to better communicate the long-term value of creative courses, particularly to parents weighing up future prospects.
The approach
Embedding Pathways Graduate across course pages
UCA implemented Pathways Graduate directly within their undergraduate course pages, transforming how career outcomes are presented.
Instead of static content, prospective students and parents can now explore a rich, data-led view of graduate outcomes, including:
- The range of careers graduates progress into
- Real-world job roles linked to each course
- Salary insights and progression over time
- Clear context around what each role involves in practice
This helps users move beyond a single career outcome and instead understand the wider picture - including how creative courses support strong employability across multiple pathways.
Adding greater depth with Pathways Explore
Alongside Pathways Graduate, UCA have also integrated Pathways Explore to give users the opportunity to dive deeper into each career.
From within the Graduate experience, prospective students can link directly through to Explore - unlocking richer insight into specific roles, including day-to-day responsibilities, required skills and wider career context.
This connected journey allows users to move seamlessly from “What could I become?” to “What does that actually look like?”, adding an extra layer of depth to their exploration and helping them make more informed decisions.
Supporting parent confidence
Providing clarity in uncertain times
For many parents, understanding where a course can lead is key.
By making outcomes more visible and grounded in real data, UCA can:
- Provide clear, evidence-based insight into graduate destinations
- Show that creative graduates move into a wide and varied set of careers
- Reinforce the value of creative study in a practical, tangible way
This level of transparency helps challenge outdated assumptions and builds confidence in the opportunities available after graduation.
A fully customised experience
Telling UCA’s story through their own data
UCA made full use of the customisation options within Pathways Graduate to ensure the experience reflects their unique offer.
This included:
- Using their own graduate data where available
- Highlighting the distinctive career journeys of UCA graduates
- Curating how roles and sectors are presented to reflect the true diversity of creative careers
The result is not just a careers tool, but a tailored, data-driven experience that brings their graduate outcomes to life.
Before using Pathways Graduate, we found it challenging to gather meaningful careers content for our degree webpages. As a creative university, it was particularly important for us to challenge the stereotype that creative graduates struggle to find employment by demonstrating the wide range of careers our graduates go into. Pathways has made it easy to present users with data-driven insights and helpful context about what each role involves in practice.
University for the Creative Arts
The impact
Turning career insight into a stronger proposition
By embedding Pathways Graduate, UCA have transformed how they present career outcomes:
- Careers are now a feature
- Prospective students can better understand their future options
- Parents gain confidence through clear, data-backed insight
- The university more effectively challenges misconceptions around creative careers
In summary
UCA recognise that it’s not enough to say creative degrees have value - you have to show it.
With Pathways Graduate, they’ve done exactly that.
Clear insight. Real outcomes. Greater confidence. And a stronger connection between creative study and future opportunity.
