Results day is here, and whatever your grades look like, I want to share something that might take you a long time to work out: they matter a lot less to your career than what you do next.
I’m Gareth Hoyle, Founder of Marketing Signals, a digital marketing agency I’ve been running for over two decades. I’ve hired hundreds of people at every level of seniority, and A-level results have never been the deciding factor in any of those decisions.
The data backs this up, too. Around 65% of UK employers now consider educational qualifications less important when hiring, and only 14% of UK job postings mention academic qualifications as a requirement. At the same time, demand for AI skills in UK job listings has grown by 62% in the past year, and roles requiring AI competency command a wage premium of 34% above the market rate.
The hiring landscape has also shifted, and the people who understand it and act on it are already ahead.
What I actually look for when I hire
When I sit across from a candidate, I’m asking one question: can this person do the job, and will they grow?
What tells me the answer is what they’ve actually done. A campaign they built, a problem they worked through, or something they’ve created without being asked. What I’m buying as an employer is the ability to think, learn quickly, and get things done in real situations. You can build all of that now, regardless of today’s results.
By the time you’re five years into a career, A-level grades won’t be on your CV, and your track record takes over; the work you’ve done, the skills you’ve developed, what you can actually point to. That’s what gets you hired and promoted, and none of it requires a particular grade from when you were 18.
There are plenty of routes to building that track record, and university is just one of them. Whatever path you take, getting to grips with AI is one of the most useful things you can do right now.
Why right now is a good time to get ahead
We’re at the beginning of a significant shift, and it’s already underway across most industries. AI is changing what businesses need from the people they hire, and it’s happening faster than most hiring pipelines can keep up with.
According to the government’s own AI Labour Market Survey, 97% of UK businesses currently report an AI skills gap, and only 13% of graduate schemes include any AI training. Most people entering the workforce right now have had no preparation for working with AI tools. For school leavers who start building those skills now, that gap is a real opportunity.
People who learn to use AI tools genuinely, rather than just dabble, are going to stand out in almost any field. You can start building that capability for free this week. And it’s one of the few skills where the more you put in, the better you get indefinitely.
So whatever today’s results say, here’s where I’d focus your energy next.
Seven practical steps worth taking now
1. Look into clearing
If university was the plan and the grades didn’t get you there, clearing is worth exploring quickly, because spaces fill up fast.
Universities are increasingly looking for candidates with genuine potential rather than students who simply hit the grade. The UCAS Clearing page lists every available course and institution in real time from results morning, and the process involves calling the university’s clearing hotline directly.
It helps to be direct about who you are and why you want the course. Rather than apologising for your grades, talk about what else you can bring, such as relevant experience, things you’ve worked on, or anything that shows a genuine interest in the subject. Visiting in person on the day, if you’re close enough, often makes a difference, too.
A lot of people end up happier with their clearing course than they would have been with their original choice.
2. Consider an apprenticeship
For a growing number of employers, an apprenticeship background is preferable to a degree. Practical experience counts for more than qualifications.
Apprenticeships have risen from 3% of AI sector hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025, according to the government’s AI Labour Market Survey. Businesses are recognising that someone who has spent two or three years building practical skills in a real workplace often arrives better prepared than a fresh graduate. Personally, I’d often rather hire someone with solid hands-on experience than a graduate who hasn’t had that.
Apprenticeships now exist at every level, from Level 2 (equivalent to GCSEs) up to Level 7 (postgraduate), across most major sectors. Google, Amazon, Deloitte, and the NHS all run formal programmes. The gov.uk apprenticeship finder is the best place to search by role, level, and location.
3. Get a job or take a gap year
You’re 18. Taking some time to figure out what you actually want is not a bad move.
A gap year or part-time job can build something genuinely valuable: a clearer sense of what you want, and experience you can talk about in an interview, but the key is to give it some structure.
Volunteering, working abroad, or building something you care about all give you things to talk about when you’re applying for jobs later. A gap year where you can’t explain what you did or what you got out of it is harder to sell in an interview. And if you do work, even in something completely unrelated to where you eventually want to go, you’ll pick up more relevant experience than you might expect. How workplaces function, how to deal with difficult situations, how to communicate when the stakes are real: all of that travels.
Keep a record of what you do. Projects, responsibilities, things you figured out on your own. All of it becomes material for a portfolio or a CV later.
4. Research your target career
If you have a sense of where you want to go, the most practical thing you can do right now is spend serious time on job boards looking at what employers in that field actually ask for.
Search for job titles you’re interested in on LinkedIn and Indeed, as well as any industry-specific boards, but don’t apply yet. Just read through enough listings to spot the patterns. What skills come up repeatedly? What tools do they mention? Are there certifications that appear consistently?
Work out the gap between where you are now and what those jobs require, then start closing it. If every marketing role asks for Google Analytics, get Google certified. If data roles mention Python consistently, start learning it. If AI tools keep coming up, which they do in most fields now, start getting comfortable with them.
It gives you a skills roadmap grounded in what employers actually want, which is more useful than waiting to be taught.
5. Do every course you can, especially in AI and digital skills
Completing courses in your own time signals to an employer that you’re self-motivated and willing to learn without being pushed. In a field moving this quickly, that matters a lot. Free or affordable courses have also never been more accessible or credible.
Google: Google AI Essentials is a solid starting point and covers practical AI tools used in real workplaces. Google Digital Garage covers digital marketing and data fundamentals. Google Analytics and Ads certifications are things I actively look for at Marketing Signals.
Microsoft: Microsoft Learn offers free paths in AI fundamentals, Azure, and Copilot. Microsoft certifications carry real weight in corporate and tech roles.
LinkedIn Learning: Included with a LinkedIn Premium trial; completed courses appear directly on your profile, where recruiters look. The AI and digital marketing content is particularly good.
Coursera and FutureLearn: Coursera’s AI for Everyone by Andrew Ng is one of the most accessible introductions to AI available. FutureLearn has solid free options from UK universities.
Being able to talk in an interview about which AI tools you use and how is already something that sets candidates apart. Get comfortable with ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Claude, and be concrete when you talk about them.
6. Use AI to build something real
AI tools have made it possible for anyone to produce portfolio-ready work without a job, a degree, a team, or a budget. Pick a career direction, find a project that would be relevant to it, use AI to help you build it, then put it somewhere people can see it.
Marketing: Use ChatGPT or Claude to help you develop a content strategy for a brand you’re interested in: audience analysis, content pillars, and a month of post ideas. Write it up as a case study and publish it on LinkedIn.
Web development: Use an AI coding tool like GitHub Copilot or Claude to help you build a working website or small app from scratch. Host it on GitHub Pages or Netlify and share the link.
Journalism and PR: Use AI to help you research and structure a long-form article or press release on something you care about. Edit it until it has your voice, then publish it on Medium, Substack, or your own blog.
Data and finance: Find a public dataset, use AI to help you clean and analyse it, then build a visualisation. Google Colab and Tableau Public are both free. Publish the output with a short explanation of your methodology.
Design and creative: Use Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, or Canva AI to develop a visual identity for a fictional brand. Document the brief, the process, and the output as a case study.
The finished piece goes into your portfolio. The process of figuring out how to direct the AI, edit what it produces, and make the work your own is the experience. An employer can see and evaluate both of those things, which they cannot do with a grade.
7. Build a portfolio and make it visible
A portfolio is the most direct thing you can show an employer. It’s evidence of what you can actually do, and paid experience is not required for it to be convincing.
Personal projects, self-initiated work, mock campaigns, things built with AI tools, all of it counts. Employers want to see that you can produce something independently. What makes the difference is how you present it.
Frame each piece. For every piece of work, explain the goal, what you did, and what came out of it. A short write-up alongside the work makes it much easier to evaluate quickly.
Put it somewhere people can find it. A LinkedIn profile with a Featured section is the minimum. A personal site built with Squarespace, Wix, or Framer gives you more control. For creative and design work, Behance and Dribbble are where employers look. For development work, GitHub is essential.
Keep adding to it. New work, even one project every few weeks, signals that you’re still learning. Using AI to help you produce it means you can move faster than you might expect.
A final word
Your results today are one data point. An employer cannot tell from your grades whether you’re curious, take initiative, or have the drive to build something without being asked.
All of those things show up in what you do from here. The AI skills gap is wide open right now, and the people who start building now will be well ahead of most of their peers by the time they’re seriously applying for jobs.
