Gatsby Charitable Foundation

Plugging a sector wide skills gap, with Engineering and Manufacturing T Levels

The UK’s engineering and manufacturing skills gap is costing the economy £6bn in lost output each year. For SMEs in particular, finding work-ready technical talent remains a persistent challenge.

We’ve worked closely with the Gatsby Charitable Foundation to encourage the uptake of Engineering & Manufacturing T Level industry placements, showing employers in the sector that these are rigorous qualifications, and the students taking them are skilled, motivated and ready to hit the ground running. We positioned T Levels as a practical solution for employers struggling to find and recruit the right talent for their business.

Grounded in insight, our approach used behavioural science principles to effectively inform, assure and motivate our target audience. This shaped all messaging, content and comms activity.

Tomorrow’s Talent, Today
Anchored by a clear campaign identity and real employer case studies, the work combined bespoke national partner campaigns, targeted PR activity and tailored content toolkits – ensuring messages about T Levels reached the right employers through voices they trust.

Our impact:

• Awareness of T Levels among employers rose by 17 percentage points, to 27%, with more than half now saying they have a good understanding
• Employers now actively exploring T Level placements increased by 7 percentage points, to 44%
• Our programme reached 21.5 million across all comms channels – driving 32,000 visits to the Government’s campaign webpage
• 11 videos generated 585,000 views, with 34,000 completed views
• We secured 30 pieces of PR coverage, including a cover story and a five-page spread in key trade titles
• More than 150 assets distributed by 15 regional intermediary networks

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“Working with Jack & Grace felt seamless from day one. The team very quickly got to grips with a complex brief, brought clarity and direction where it was needed and delivered quality outputs at pace.

“Their strategic approach helped us manage multiple stakeholders with confidence, and reach a diverse, hard to reach employer audience with real impact. We trusted the team implicitly and are thrilled with what we’ve achieved together.”

Harriet Evans, Project Manager, The Gatsby Charitable Foundation