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In July 2025, GEL Studios launched Next Gen programme - a brand-new approach to work experience built around giving young people a proper look at life inside a creative agency. Not a week of making tea or a few days watching from the sidelines!
From its early stages of development, our aim was always very simple: give students a real brief, real support and a better understanding of where creative skills can take them.
One year on, the programme has grown into something we are immensely proud of.
Since July last year:
- 15 students have taken part in Next Gen placements at GEL Studios.
- Together, they have spent a total of 91 days in the studio.
- Completed 21 projects.
- Received 344 hours of studio time from the team.
- Alongside the placements, we have also attended six school and college events.
- Contributing a further 52 hours to careers fairs, mock interviews, futures evenings and creative brief sessions.
These numbers do matter to us, but the real value has been seeing what happens when young people are trusted with meaningful work.
What Next Gen programme looks like in practice.
Each student is given a creative brief to work on during their time with us, exploring a mix of research, branding, content and social media tasks. These briefs give students the chance to use industry-standard tools such as Canva, Illustrator, Photoshop, Google Ads and SEMrush, depending on their interests.
Over the past year, students have worked on mock projects linked to brands and organisations including The Felix Project, DASH Water, LUSH, SpecialEffect, Tony’s Chocolonely, The Culturevators, Ocado and Grub Club. All these briefs are developed by our team in-house, connecting B Corp brands with larger organisations making a positive difference - a task we always enjoy pulling together!
Students are encouraged to research, develop ideas, ask questions, respond to feedback and present their thinking. That can feel unfamiliar at first, especially for students who have not spent time in a studio before, but it is a key part of the experience we offer at GEL Studios.
One piece of feedback we often receive is that presenting their project helps students step outside their comfort zone, giving them “amazing practice” for pitches and university presentations in the future. That confidence does not always arrive on day one, but it often grows quickly once students realise their ideas are being taken seriously and they have a safe space to explore their interests.
What students have taken from it.
Across the feedback we received, students rated their overall experience highly.
In 2025, the average score was 9.6 out of 10.
In 2026, it rose to 9.8.
Students also scored the programme strongly for how much they learned, how comfortable they felt asking questions and how likely they would be to recommend the experience to someone they know.
One student said learning Canva gave them “a useful digital skill” they hoped to use in a future marketing career. Another said learning about Google Ads and SEMrush gave them “really good grounding” if they continued into the industry.
Another said the mix of independent work and conversations with the team helped them understand what office life can feel like in practice.
That is exactly what Next Gen was created to do.
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Why we keep doing it .
Creative careers can feel hard to access if you do not already know someone in the industry.
There are lots of students with ideas, curiosity and talent who may not know what roles exist, what skills are useful or how a studio works day to day. The Next Gen programme gives them a clearer view, and it also gives us something back.
Having students in the studio reminds us how much confidence matters. It reminds us that creative thinking is not something people either have or do not have - it can be encouraged, it can be practised, and it can grow with the right support.
Over the past year, we have seen students arrive quietly, then leave with passion, excitement, new skills and a stronger sense of what they might want to do next. For us, that feels like time well spent.
Looking ahead.
The Next Gen programme is still growing.
We are learning from every placement, every school event and every piece of feedback.
Over the next year, we want to keep improving the structure of the programme, develop full-class workshops, build on our relationships with local schools and colleges, and potentially begin dipping into local primary schools too. We are also expanding our approach to creative briefs, making sure each student or group leaves with something useful. That might be a stronger portfolio piece, a better understanding of marketing and design or it might just be more confidence in asking questions and sharing ideas.
One year in, the programme is doing what we hoped it would do.
It is giving young people proper creative experience, not just work experience.
