Case StudiesCreating a user‑centred data strategy for Careers Wales
- Careers Wales
- Delivery
Careers Wales is Wales’ national careers advice and guidance service. The organisation set a clear ambition: “to harness our data to empower individuals, enhance career opportunities, and drive economic growth across Wales.”
Perago were engaged to support the Careers Wales data intelligence team to turn that ambition into a practical, organisation‑wide strategy, with a roadmap to support the realisation of the ambitions set out in the strategy.
We took a user‑centred approach, engaging employees, partners and stakeholders across the Careers Wales landscape to ensure the strategy reflected real needs, not a strategy written in isolation. We carried out in‑depth interviews with leaders and teams across the organisation (including the Chief Executive, HR, Communications, Marketing, Operational and technical teams, and Business Intelligence), mapping what data is collected and how it’s used day‑to‑day. We complemented this with desk research and benchmarking against peer services in Scotland and New Zealand.
What we did
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- Discovery interviews & insight synthesis — captured how data flows through the organisation and where it enables (or blocks) outcomes; used these insights to frame priorities.
- Benchmarking — reviewed approaches from other national careers services (Scotland, New Zealand) to identify good practice and gaps.
- Co‑designed Data Strategy — distilled themes and objectives into a clear, publishable strategy centred on users and measurable outcomes, structured around four strategic pillars.
- Roadmap — produced a pragmatic Now / Next / Later plan with near‑term actions, follow‑on milestones and decision points to maintain momentum.
- A Data Strategy aligned with the organisation’s remit and operational plan (and broader Welsh context), providing clarity on where to invest, how to build capability, and how to collaborate across the ecosystem.
- A roadmap that makes the work executable—what happens first, what follows, and how progress will be evidenced—so the strategy doesn’t gather dust.
- A credible platform for sector leadership in Wales, improving how Careers Wales uses and analyses data to inform national strategy.
The user-centred Data Strategy was shaped by organisation-wide research and engagement, with a clear Now / Next / Later roadmap outlining immediate actions for the first six months and key milestones for subsequent phases. It is built around four strategic pillars—innovation and continuous improvement, a data-confident workforce, collaboration, and product and service development—and was developed in alignment with the Welsh Government remit and organisational plans to ensure both internal and external coherence.
Together, these elements establish a stronger foundation for the organisation to lead the sector in Wales and make better use of data to inform national strategy.
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