How can learning technology help our graduates get jobs?

Many of us are surrounded by anecdotal experiences that the graduate labour market is hard (full disclosure: this author has children of exactly the relevant age). However, the evidence is difficult. For example, the BBC recently reported that “the number of graduate jobs has fallen almost in half in the past year”.  But Robert Newry, CEO of recruitment assessment company Arctic Shores, was quick to point out the problem with this headline – the reported decline was in graduate vacancies listed on a leading website, Adzuna. It was not information about actual hiring behaviour – it was information about a proxy for this behaviour. There may be many other reasons that Adzuna’s listings are down.

For example, employers may be choosing alternative recruitment routes to job boards. From anecdotal evidence, AI may be assisting and encouraging applicants to make many more applications through such sites compared to previously, leading to hiring managers becoming overwhelmed. Additionally, graduates themselves may be finding the experience of applying through established online job boards fruitless, dispiriting, or both.

Better data is needed: one key indicator is the large-scale Institute of Student Employers’ (ISE) Student Recruitment Survey, not yet out for this year. In 2025, it reported “overall, graduate hiring had fallen by 8% year-on-year, yet apprentice hiring increased by 8%. Graduates still outnumber apprentices and therefore the overall entry-level job market is down 5%”. But even this report is not comprehensive: as the ISE clearly states, their members are mainly large apprenticeship-levy paying employers. It may well be that smaller organisations are behaving differently.

Even if we assume the overall entry-level market for graduates is tougher than previously, it’s hard to establish why. Whilst many employers are claiming this is about AI reducing the need for workers, some analyses see this as a convenient excuse in the face of very high political and economic uncertainty. Employers may also be pausing to work out what they need to advertise for: there is a great deal of discussion about how entry-level jobs might need to be redesigned for the age of AI, alongside analyses of which skills and attitudes graduates might need to be employable.

So – where are the impact investment opportunities, particularly in Vocational Technology?

The baseline fit is sound: generally, hiring has been an attractive sector for investors who need to make a financial return. There is clear value in finding the right employee and the right job, and several business models support these transactions. This is also clearly impactful: getting someone into a job, or a better job, is worthwhile (and relatively easily measured). Technology has a number of affordances which should add value, especially as we move towards more machine-readable descriptions of knowledge, skills and attitudes, accelerated by digital credentials and a machine-readable UK Standard Skills Classification.

Ufi Ventures’ investments Bodyswaps, Greenworkx and Springpod illustrate different approaches to solving a range of problems across the ecosystem.

One space appears particularly interesting right now. Many organisations have developed relatively generic assessments of skills, knowledge and/or attitudes – including the “durable” skills that many claim are essential for graduates. Arctic Shores is just one example of an earlier stage company in this space: our last quarterly report documented a range of associated M & A transactions, and it remains full of potential. Nevertheless, the increasing power of generative AI and availability of machine-readable resources allow for much greater customisation and personalisation of assessments around a highly specific combination of sector, organisation, role and individual applicant. The assessment process might also interactively adapt to the applicant as it progresses. Ufi investee Bodyswaps has recently built on a background in pre-assembled tests to develop one such AI-assisted engine; doubtless many others are in development.

Services which integrate such technologies could make job search, application or assessment much more efficient and rewarding for both employers and job seekers. Whilst acknowledging that it starts with AI, a service could reassure and motivate its user that resources have been spent getting to know them with technology, ensure that responses come quickly and courteously, and accelerate the path towards a human interaction where the fit is evident. Whilst not targeting graduates specifically, another Ufi investee, Lily, shows aspects of what this might look like: a short interview using AI quickly assesses fit, allowing the candidate to interview and receive a quick response at any time, whilst human recruiters can spend more time with candidates once they pass this initial filter.

Ultimately, AI-enabled personalisation could fundamentally reshape how everybody finds and accesses work – not just graduates.

If AI-enabled services can appropriately understand an individual’s skills, experiences and aspirations together with the detailed context of an employer organisation’s operations and requirements, the future of hiring looks less like searching and more like matching. Agents might even assess the potential combinations and make the introductions between only “best-fit” humans – although there are clear trade-offs here between what technology can make more efficient, and what only real people can understand, decide and do.

These possibilities are only just opening up, and we see huge potential for thoughtful businesses in this space. We’d love to hear your thoughts on better approaches to upskilling and hiring graduates – whether these are just ideas, or if you’ve got a company which is doing this in new ways. Get in touch with the team at ventures@ufi.co.uk.