The Future Skills Questionnaire is a tool to measure learners’ career-readiness.
FSQ covers key aspects of knowledge, skills and attitudes that are important for successful transitions.
Simple data insight can support you to make targeted interventions, evaluate your careers programme and identify the impact of careers education in your setting.
The questions are mapped against the Gatsby Benchmarks, learning outcomes from the CDI framework and the Skills Builder framework for essential skills.
The questionnaires were developed in consultation with Careers Leaders and sector experts and were piloted in 2020. You can find out more about how FSQ was developed here > How FSQ has been developed
The questionnaire takes approximately 15 minutes to complete. Learners should complete the questionnaire as independently as possible and must have access to a device with internet, for example a laptop or mobile phone. Learners should understand the purpose of the questionnaire ahead of completion, so it is important that staff that may be involved in the delivery of FSQ also understand this too.
There are five versions of the questionnaire, allowing schools to assess the skills and knowledge of their learners at specific points of transition.
Each questionnaire type is only available to the year groups as specified below with the exception of the SEND version, which is available to all year groups.
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- Starting Secondary (Year7)
- Transition from Key Stage 3 (Years 8 and 9)
- GCSE Years (Years 10 and 11)
- Post 16 Study (Years 12 and 13)
- SEND (all year groups)
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Please note: there is a slight difference with terminology in the video due to recent language changes in product, but the core functionality of FSQ remains the same.
The Value of the Future Skills Questionnaire.
Read our latest FSQ Insight Briefing 2023/24 to find out more about the impact of FSQ across the country. Over 230,000 learners from almost 1,100 secondary education institutions completed the Future Skills Questionnaire in 2023/24. Download FSQ Insight Briefing 2023/24.
Hear from our Insight and Impact Team about the value of FSQ in the latest CEC Now and Next Report 2024:
Hear directly from a Careers Leader about the impact FSQ and Compass+ has made in their school:
Careers Leaders can use learners' responses to the questionnaire to:
- Identify gaps in a school’s provision
- Tailor careers activities to individual needs
- Measure progress of their careers programme over time.
The questionnaire is delivered from Compass+ , with learners’ questionnaire responses automatically added to their individual learner profiles.
The Future Skills Questionnaire supports Careers Leaders to evaluate their careers programme by gathering data on learners' careers knowledge and skills. This should sit within a wider programme evaluation also looking at feedback, education engagement and destinations data. For further support on how to evaluate your careers programme, see our Impact Evaluation Toolkit on the Resource Directory.
More Careers Leaders share their thoughts on the value of FSQ:
Next Steps:
Guidance on all aspects of implementing the Future Skills Questionnaire
Future Skills Questionnaire implementation resources (PDFs)
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