Nurturing northern talent — why business & education working together matters

A young person can’t aspire to join an industry that they’ve never seen — and that lack of exposure is still holding too many back.

Here, Jane Fletcher, CEO of Aldridge Education — a national multi‑academy trust with five locations across the North — explains why stronger connections between businesses and local education institutions are essential for developing the next generation of talent.

This marks the start of our new True North series, bringing together member perspectives on what matters most for growing businesses.

Jane argues that while high‑quality teaching matters, it can only go so far on its own. In communities that have faced long‑term economic inactivity, young people need networks, real‑world experience and the confidence that they belong in professional spaces. That’s where employers can make a transformational difference.

The value of engagement

We encourage business leaders to engage with our students — not as a nice-to-have but a transformational and vital part of the education process. It’s about curiosity, creativity and helping learners to understand what it actually looks like to be ‘workplace ready’. 

By providing hands-on experience, we ensure that when our students sit in an interview, they’re more ready than anyone else because they’ve already lived a bit of that reality.

For business, this isn’t an opportunity for altruism. When you’re an ambitious scaling company, every hire is high stakes. You don’t have the capacity to recruit 250 people and just hope that every single one of them works out — but by engaging with students early and mentoring them as they go through college, you’re effectively pre-prepping your future employees. You get to ‘suss out’ the talent pool for free, investing only your time while ensuring that the person you eventually offer a job to is exactly who you need. 

It moves us away from credential-heavy hiring and towards a model based on potential and proven attributes. Just look at our Founder, Sir Rod Aldridge. His book, You’re Better Than They Think You Are, speaks to his educational experience, effectively being told he couldn’t amount to anything — and his qualifications would have attested to that.

Instead, he went on to found Capita and take it to the FTSE 100. That’s the potential that we seek to unlock in our students.

Acting with purpose

At Aldridge Education, we have two core themes to our mission: leaving no one behind and bringing learning to life. The current system in education often operates on the assumption that we expect to leave some people behind you just need to leave fewer behind than everyone else.

We believe that this isn't good enough. To truly support every learner, we need a ‘backstop’ — a holistic approach that removes every obstacle to a young person’s success. This personal development agenda is what keeps them in school and takes them into the working world. And ironically, stepping away from the exam pipeline to engage with industry mentors nearly always leads to higher exam grades too!

We’re currently moving forward with the provision for our Aldridge Connect Plus programme that aims to bring in local experts including graduate alumni from our schools and colleges to mentor current students, with the goal of growing our sixth-form provision to 500 students.

We can’t do this in isolation, however. Industry and education need to work together to transform these young people’s life chances, with businesses actively engaging in programmes like this. 

While it’s understandable that small companies often don’t have the resource to spend significant time volunteering, that’s more than made up for by the time saved once you know that you have the right hire.

What you can do

For business leaders looking to make a meaningful impact while securing their own talent pipelines, I suggest focusing on these areas:

1. Think beyond the interview: an hour-long interview will never tell you as much as mentoring a student over a term. Look for opportunities to engage with students through projects or site visits to see their skills in action.
2. Identify the ‘attitude’ gap: engage with schools to communicate the specific attributes that you need — like creativity and curiosity — so that the curriculum can better reflect the realities of your workplace.
3. Invest time, not just money: while funding is always a challenge for schools, your time and presence there can provide the visibility that sparks a career path.
4. Prioritise local talent: Look at the economically inactive areas on your doorstep. By advocating for and engaging with these young people, you’re not just helping a student — you’re invigorating your local economy.
    

The education sector isn't currently achieving what it should and businesses must be part of the solution. If we can achieve this model of industry and education working in sync, it’ll be transformational — for our learners, your businesses and communities across the North.

By coming together through networks like True North, leaders can help to shape a future where every young person has the chance to realise their potential.