While all our work, targets and activity is very much geared around the academic year it feels helpful to take a few moments to look back at 2025 to consider the progress we have made.
In January 2025 we announced our change in name from the CSTT to the Built Environment Schools Trust. We knew this would be a significant step for the charity, but I for one underestimated both the effort required in re-branding, even for our small organisation, and more importantly the huge impact it would have on our profile within the Built Environment Sector, and with educators. We should perhaps have changed our name earlier to better reflect our focus being right across the sector, not just surveying, but as it worked out our timing was good and aligned with a sector wide discussion that perhaps “Construction” was too narrow a term and instead we should consider ourselves as being the Built Environment Sector.
The numbers of teachers registering to use our free My Environment My Future (MEMF) schools programme continued to grow to over 600 teachers in more than 300 schools across the UK, reaching an estimated 50,000 students. Our National MEMF Competition attracted good numbers of excellent entries from students and teachers finding innovative ways to use the materials; the innovation award going to Derby High School who included MEMF in their “Change Maker” project completed in partnership with schools in Thailand.
Our ambition remains to reach every one of the 4178 secondary schools in the UK, and to form a partnership between each school and the sector. Impact of the MEMF programme remains a key objective however, so it was satisfying to learn from our student poll that 69% of students say that they are now interested in finding out more about careers in the sector (up from 6% before using MEMF) and 33% are taking steps to prepare for a career in the sector.
With the support of the University of the Built Environment (previously UCEM) through our joint project to reach schools in the greater Reading area, we have been able to dramatically increase our reach. We have been able to afford to develop and now offer materials linked to teaching of Geography in the curriculum for students aged 8 to 18 years old, all introducing careers in the built environment. This has many benefits for our work:
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- Geography is studied by all students up to year 9 (Key Stage 3 – aged up to 14 years old) which means we can reach them all not just the 40% or so who choose Geography at GCSE.
- The Ofsted inspection framework schools operate under has been updated to require careers education to be distributed across schools and included in classroom teaching; we could hardly have asked for a better environment to fit into.
- With the help of Emma Meredith, who joined the team in September after 31 years as a Geography Teacher and Assistant Head, we have also been able to position the Built Environment as the career pathway for Geography in schools.
- Emma has enlisted the Geographical Association who boast many Geography Teachers in their membership, and the Royal Geographical Society to support our promotion of careers.
- We have delivered what many have asked us for; a series of materials for Primary Schools.
- With the wider range of age groups through our competition, we now offer four categories of prizes for Key Stages 2, 3, 4 and 5, Primary schools to A-level.
Teachers are time poor, and schools are cash strapped. This makes it difficult and time consuming to convince educators that the Built Environment Schools Trust is a charity, and MEMF really is helpful, but with Emma’s help we are making great strides and accelerating school take up.
Engaging the sector also presents challenges, however. The sector is enormous, with up to 3.8 million people and over 400,000 enterprises, resulting in inevitable fragmentation, and a lack of co-ordination, collaboration or clear careers messages presented to the next generation of talent. Across the sector we can often compete within the sector rather than with other sectors such as Financial Services, Health, or the Tech sector, for the attention of careers leads and young people. We have therefore positioned the BE Schools Trust as the “top of the funnel” of interest and an introducing mechanism for many of the other organisations working hard to promote individual careers in the sector. It is an ongoing discussion to establish that we are not competing, but a gateway to engagement across the UK for the whole sector.
The encouragement we needed from the sector that we have a role to play came in a tangible form when we won the “EDI initiative of 2025” at the Property Week Awards in July and the “Future of Real Estate” Award from Estates Gazette. These, and short listing in four other industry awards was quite an achievement for our small team really helped boost morale.
In 2025 we were very pleased to be invited to became honorary members of the Construction Industry Council through whom we have made progress in engaging many CIC members, particularly the professional bodies, and are now working with 9, some of whom are discussing working together through us, plus we have made a lot of progress in Scotland. We are in discussions with many employers across the sector and, having established that an MEMF project can be funded as part of S106, we are hoping a number of projects with developers will help improve our engagement further.
Having worked for 5 years to establish our credentials within the skills and careers ecosystem our persistence has also started to pay off with those organisations concerned with careers and industry engagement with schools becoming more proactive for us. The Careers Enterprise Company, STEM Learning and the Construction Technical Excellence Colleges are some of our key partners for 2026.
Looking towards 2026 our target is to increase by 50% the number of schools we engage with, our aim is to double it! We have a much-enhanced offer and more insight into the way schools and education are working. Plus the news is that in the first 4 months of the current academic year 165 more teachers have registered to use the materials with, they tell us, an additional 24,193 students! This big increase on an already large base of engagement shows that we have the wind in our sails when reaching out to schools. What about the sector though?
I remain optimistic that the sector will overcome its “go it alone” instincts and recognise the value of investing in attracting the next generation. The need to do so is surely beyond doubt with skills gaps and new jobs emerging as technology and sustainability become even more powerful drivers of change.
If you have spent the 2 or 3 minutes required to read this then maybe you can help us reach another school and give a class of students an insight into our sector. Why not go to www.beschoolstrust.org/sector, download the template schools careers talk presentation, make it your own, and start to build a relationship with your local school. There are around 500,000 professionals in the sector, it only takes 1 in a hundred to visit a school and our pipeline of diverse talent will be transformed. Be part of giving all young people access to the opportunities our sector provides.
Terry Watts – CEO, Built Environment Schools Trust