Careers Support for Young People

The purpose of this preliminary market engagement notice is to inform the market of a forthcoming supplier engagement event regarding future support for schools and colleges to deliver careers education, information, advice and guidance for young people in England.

The Department for Education (DfE) will be undertaking an online market engagement event via MS Teams at 13:30 on 4 June 2026 for interested parties. The event is anticipated to last for a duration of 120 minutes.

The slide deck will be published on Jaggaer (ssq_747) following the event.

If you wish to attend the market engagement event, please use the link below:

https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/37330634720732?p=0wulXBBrLzFePLzSOX

We last carried out supplier engagement regarding future support for schools and colleges to deliver careers education, information, advice and guidance on 31 March 2026.

In this event we shared our broad plans for how we want to continue to support schools and colleges to improve careers guidance from the 2027/28 academic year and to support partnership working with strategic and local authorities through careers hubs. We used a supplier survey to test bidder appetite and delivery viability with potential suppliers.

The purpose of the follow up supplier engagement webinar on 4 June is to:

• Respond to insights and questions gathered in the survey we issued after the supplier engagement event on 31 March, including providing further detail on proposed requirements.
• Outline and test a draft service specification and outline Key Performance Indicators and seek supplier views to inform these.

This Notice is not a binding statement of intent or a call for competition.

It does not signify the commencement of any competitive process and does not constitute any commitment by the DfE.

If DfE decides to commence any competitive process(es) as contemplated by this notice, a separate notice(s) will be published at the relevant time.

The information contained in this notice, including information relating to the nature and scope of the authority's requirements, and the service classification of this requirement from the list of CPV codes, is only indicative of the authority's current thinking, and is neither exhaustive nor binding and the DfE reserves the right at its absolute discretion to amend this notice at the time of issue or at any other time.

The DfE will not be liable for any bid cost, expenditure, work or effort incurred by a provider in acting on the basis of this notice.

Any funding estimates referenced are indicative only and subject to change. The Department makes no commitment at this stage to the final scope or funding envelope of any future contractual activity.

The current funding estimates are between £90m and £180m for a 3-5 year contract, plus a mobilisation period of up to 6 months if required.