The group shared existing early careers programmes from across the industry, including apprenticeships, paid work experience and internal academies, and worked through the practical barriers smaller organisations face: reduced headcount, small HR teams, and ad hoc, informal work experience arrangements.

There was strong consensus that early careers is a shared industry challenge that needs a structured, intentional response rather than one-off fixes.

Key points from the discussion include:

• Paid work experience is the lowest-barrier entry point for smaller publishers, with events teams flagged as well placed to absorb placements.
  
  
• Nepotism and informal work experience need to be replaced with centrally managed programmes, a pain point echoed across several attendee organisations.
  
  
• Full use of the apprenticeship levy can be commercially justified: One publisher secured sign-off for nine new commercial and sales apprentices, building the case on performance data from existing junior hires.
  
  
• “Silver medalist” talent pools, candidates who nearly made it onto a programme, are worth maintaining as an ongoing pipeline.
  
  
• The skills junior hires bring, particularly around AI and new content formats, are increasingly a two-way exchange rather than a one-way cost.
  

Thank you to those who attended and shared their programmes: Adeife Onwuzulike (BMJ Group), Allan Laing (DC Thomson), Cath Lee (CPL One), Christina Gounaris (Infopro Digital), David Reay (Immediate Media), Hannah King (Our Media), Iliana Schwaab (Bauer Media), John Athanasiou (Hearst UK), Sean Penistone (William Reed), and Zoe Oliver (Haymarket).

Hosted by PPA’s Genevieve Miller, chaired by Gnosoulla Tsioupra-Lewis (Arc Network).

If you lead your company’s people and culture function, and would like to join the PPA People & Culture Group, please get in touch: genevieve.miller@ppa.co.uk

Do you want to help open doors into publishing and media? The PPA Paid Work Experience Programme is now live, find out more and how to get involved here.