EDUCATION AND SKILLS


with over 80 different educational institutions represented, however, only 12% had completed a specific cosmetic science or beauty qualification. There are still very few UK university courses


available with UCAS listing 12 courses with cosmetic or cosmetic and pharmaceutical science,8


there are over 1200 according to UCAS. When we asked the question about


knowledge of specific courses/qualifications to enter a job in the industry, most replied that they had no knowledge of what qualifications were needed while they were in full time education (Figure 2). This awareness improved with time working in the industry. So, although people already in our industry


are very well educated and to a high level, we still feel that this is not because specific relevant courses are being promoted at school or provided in higher education, and the pathways remain unclear. It is also true to say, that with such courses being few, employers generally see a degree in science as a good start. When we analysed the respondent’s


motivation to undertake specific training courses by age group, we found that younger respondents did more work to research what courses/training/jobs were available and went on to access these, versus older groups who were much less self-directed and older respondents again said they ‘fell into’ their career (Figure 3). The younger age groups were somewhat


underrepresented in the survey (11% under-25s and 45% under-35s), but we found that around half of under-35s said they had researched their career choice, indicating that those starting in jobs more recently were more likely to have (or to have sought out) some prior knowledge of the sector. The biggest factor driving their research was personal passion. This is great news for the industry as it shows


that motivations are strongly led by a passion for the sector with younger age groups actively researching how best to enter careers in this sector. Recurring themes were wishing to help people feel good, very interested from a young age and the link between science and creativity


How did you start your career in the industry? Presented by Age Group


18 15 compared with say chemistry where


1 = Had no knowledge at all 5 = Had good knowledge


100 75 50 25 0


92 (57.5%)


49


1


22 (13.8%) 2


Need to support young people So, our first actionable insights from the survey were that we need to support young people to choose a career pathway in the industry by i) resourcing their research; ii) increasing their awareness of educational/training options and iii) by opening their eyes to the types of jobs offered. This latter point is being addressed in a project being run by the British Beauty Council called Future Talent,9 UK.


recently launched in the Our survey results showed that the top skills


gap mentioned was ‘availability of specific training courses’. We do need to monitor this trend to see whether the introduction of more relevant and accessible information and expansion of the college and university courses on offer will help signpost careers in the industry. Programmes like Future Talent will help generate interest, but, as said earlier, there are still few degree-level courses focused on training this future talent. Interestingly, when we asked about


awareness of current qualifications on offer, there was better awareness amongst younger respondents (Figure 4) but this was still much less than the awareness of specific education routes when already working in the industry. This demonstrates that those working in the


sector could really help to promote signposting of careers and suggests that partnering between companies and schools/universities will continue


24 22 20


12 (7.5%) 3


17 (10.6%) 4


17 (10.6%) 5


Figure 2: Awareness of qualifications required for jobs in the cosmetics and beauty sector


to be helpful to future generations. Many companies actively do this with STEM but efforts are not yet nationally


programmes,10


coordinated, comprehensive, or targeted – for example at girls, with careers in personal care in mind. Thus, we still need to do more work to promote cosmetic science careers to those taking the more generic science and technology subjects at school and in higher education, such as chemistry, biology, physics and engineering and pharmaceutical sciences.


Signposting career opportunities An encouraging take-home message from the survey is that awareness of careers in the industry before employment is improving, and when younger people are already passionate to get into the industry, they will do more to research options for training and future careers. However, this means there remains a need to reach out to those young people who may not have even considered that a career in the industry is something for them. We know that signposting to information


on education and careers in the cosmetics and beauty industry is not currently part of the mainstream careers resources in the UK’s schools. The national curriculum at Level 3 and 4 science covers the human body as well as chemistry.


Thus the importance of the products we use 8 5 4 3 1 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 Job Advert


Over 55


18-24 25-34 3 1 45-54


Careers Advice


1 1 18-24 25-34


Jobs Fair


18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54


Over 55


Specific Course 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 Fell Into It


Over 55


3 2 1 18-24 25-34 45-54 Other


Figure 3: We asked how those employed in the industry had started in their career and analysed this by age group


www.personalcaremagazine.com 1


Over 55


3 5 5 5 5 4


every day for health, hygiene and wellbeing would make an interesting topic for discussions about the industry and its products and the insights into formulation sciences would demonstrate materials science and be the basis for some discussions on careers. Many companies already do excellent work in schools as part of the STEM ambassadors programmes. We as an industry would like to be able to deliver nationally recognised resources for use in all schools, somethings echoed by the comments from the survey on ‘ideas and suggestions’ and the ambitions of the Future Talent programme. In the UK, the sector is one of the largest


employers, ranging from R&D through to salon and retail. Training and working in cosmetic science is also seen as a route to supporting other high value careers such as the pharmaceutical sector.


Comparison with Europe Those in the sector that have worked through Brexit agree that employee mobility into the UK from the EU has been affected. Whilst this


March 2023 PERSONAL CARE


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