Spark Careers partners with ScreenSkills to inspire Students with Careers in Gaming Event

@SparkCareersApp, the unique careers and live employer engagement app, joined forces with industry-led skills body for the screen industries, @UKScreenSkills, to deliver a live ‘Careers in Gaming’ event for secondary school students UK wide. 

Having taken place in June 2021, the live event enabled students to gain insight into different careers within the gaming industry via a panel of professionals with proven expertise in games art, programming and interactive software development.

In addition, students were able to see the panel in action talking about their job role and also had the opportunity to ask live questions, enabling Schools to meet the Gatsby 5 benchmark. 

David Black, Chairman of Spark and previous Education Advisor to Barclays Bank and the BBC, confirmed: “The Spark app has been created to provide schools and students with a valuable resource that ‘sparks’ interest and inspires students to think about their future career path. 

Hosting live employer engagements is one proven way of achieving this and for more ‘popular’ careers like those in gaming, presents students with a unique opportunity to virtually meet experienced professionals and gain valuable insight into the types of roles available. We had an excellent response to the Careers in Gaming event, and I am delighted that ScreenSkills were able to support us in its delivery.”

Schools, Colleges and Universities across the country can access a recording of the live Careers in Gaming employer engagement event free of charge by registering via sparkcareers.org. Once registered, Careers Leaders and Students can also access the recordings of previous employer engagement events, including careers in Construction and the Motoring industry.

Margaret Burgin of ScreenSkills, added: “The games industry is growing fast and has significant skills shortages.  Many young people play games but are not aware of the wide range of job roles involved in creating and marketing them. This collaboration was a great opportunity for us to source a panel of young games professionals, from both big and small companies, who were able to answer questions from students across the country..” 

Originally founded in 2018, Spark boasts a proven track record in delivering live employer engagement events to Schools across the country, featuring key employers like the Royal Navy, BMW and the NHS. 

Following the outbreak of COVID-19, Spark ‘pivoted’ its approach and developed a new smartphone app to virtually deliver careers support to School, College and University Students across the country. In addition to live employer engagement events, Students can also benefit from an interactive careers quiz, access to information on over 350 occupations and the opportunity to speak to their Careers Leader through a chat function within the app. 

Funded by the National Lottery and other partner organisations, ScreenSkills prides itself on providing insight, career development and other opportunities to help people get into and progress within the screen industries.