Social mobility: Will big businesses ‘buy British’?

JP Morgan’s David Lomer recently commented that “big business must start doing its bit for social mobility“. The context was the Prime Minister’s Industrial Strategy.

In an age when big business has access to a huge pool of international talent, with little obligation to ‘buy British’, Lomer addresses potential solutions. He says although access to education is one of the determining factors in someone’s success, businesses can ‘give back’ to their local communities by ensuring that, “to compete effectively with their peers, young people [have] early, practical exposure to the world of work.”

I spend a lot of time with our members and I know that this is one of their great preoccupations. I recently wrote about this issue from my own perspective when I was at uni, stating on the National Centre’s blog, that “before I went to the University of Strathclyde (which l loved btw), I wouldn’t even walk past the student union because I thought somehow the students were in some undefined way better than me, in some way more knowledgeable or experienced.”

David Lomer maps the economic consequences of such fears for the current generation: “As the UK exits the EU and goes it alone on the global stage, an added focus on social mobility – improving the chances of students from low-income families – could provide the spark for a new, much-needed generation of British entrepreneurs.”

We are looking forward to seeing how this will develop and we will continue to improve our offering alongside our members, with the development of our Work Experience platform BrandU to help connect young people to the work experience opportunities that we hope will be out there in coming months and years.

By Dr David Docherty,
National Centre CEO

Read about BrandU and konfer here.