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.
Watch our FSQ Learner engagement animation to find out more...
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 questions are mapped against the Gatsby Benchmarks, learning outcomes from the CDI framework and the Skills Builder framework for essential skills.
The questionnaire takes approximately 15-20 minutes to complete depending on learner ability and delivery method. 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 institutions 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.
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)
Institution's can use learners' responses to the questionnaire to:
- Identify gaps and trends in their careers provision
- Tailor careers activities to meet individual needs
- Respond directly to learner voice
- Identify learners at risk of becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training)
- Measure progress of learners' career-readiness over time
The questionnaire is embedded into Compass+ , with learners’ questionnaire responses automatically added to their individual learner profiles upon completion.
Each Future Skills Questionnaire type is generated on a year group basis. A learner needs to be in a specific year group to be able to complete the Future Skills Questionnaire.
| Questionnaire type | Year groups that can complete questionnaire type |
| Starting Secondary | Year 7 |
| Transition to KS3 | Year 8 and Year 9 |
| GCSE Years | Year 10 and Year 11 |
| Post 16 | Year 12, Year 13 and Year 14 |
| SEND | All year groups |
Please note: The questionnaires will always work on the year group rules above, no matter what their institution type or when a learner transitions to secondary. Learners in Middle schools in year 9 for example will only be able to complete either the ‘Transition to KS3’ or ‘SEND’ questionnaire types.
The Value of the Future Skills Questionnaire
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...
Read our 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 CEC Now and Next Report 2024:
Next Steps:
1. Access a range of resources to help you deliver FSQ successfully in your setting:
- Future Skills Questionnaire implementation resources (PDFs)
- FSQ Engagement resources
- Future Skills Questionnaire - Questions for each questionnaire type in PDF format
2. Learn how to generate and download FSQ links
3. Learn how to send FSQ links to learners (directly from Compass+ and via Mail Merge)
- How to send Future Skills Questionnaire (FSQ) links to learners
- Sending FSQ links to learners using Mail Merge
- Future Skills Questionnaire status definitions (when sending FSQ links to learners via email or sharing links manually)
4. Explore FSQ data visualisations and reporting to help you effectively analyse and evaluate learner responses:
- Viewing and downloading learners' Future Skills Questionnaire (FSQ) responses
- Learner Profile - Questionnaires tab
- Future Skills Questionnaire (FSQ) Data Visualisations
- FSQ Custom Reporting
- Creating Custom groups in the FSQ detailed and SEND reports
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