In 2026, the pressure on Early Careers functions to justify their value has never been greater. Budgets are under scrutiny, senior leaders want clearer evidence of return, and functions that cannot connect their activity to organisational outcomes risk being deprioritised.
Yet new research from TST’s Best-Practice Early Careers Guide reveals that only 36% of organisations can confidently benchmark Early Talent growth. For the remaining 64%, the challenge is not output quality, it’s the absence of a measurement framework that makes that quality visible to the people who make investment decisions.
The data paints a clear picture: organisations that outperform in Early Careers strategy don’t just report better. They secure more investment, face fewer resourcing challenges, and are significantly more likely to have a seat at the table when strategic decisions are made.
Unpacking the data: What factors are driving this?
Performance tracking is the strongest predictor of ROI confidence
According to the research, among organisations with strong performance tracking, 60% reported being confident in demonstrating ROI to senior stakeholders. Among those with poor tracking, that figure fell to just 11%.
This fivefold gap does not appear to reflect differences in programme quality. Rather, it suggests that functions with structured measurement frameworks are better equipped to translate their work into language that resonates at executive level, connecting programme activity to outcomes like pipeline strength, cost efficiency and long-term capability.
Senior buy-in has a direct and measurable impact on investment
Organisations with strong senior buy-in invest an average of £2,500 per person per year in Early Careers training. Those without it invest just £850 according to the report.
This nearly threefold difference highlights the extent to which executive advocacy determines the resources available to a function. The relationship also appears to work in both directions: investment enables stronger programmes, but evidence of impact also builds the confidence to invest further.
Without advocacy, resourcing challenges compound
The report also found that functions without strong senior buy-in were nearly three times more likely to cite resourcing as a top operational challenge, at 60% compared to 21% among those with strong advocacy.
This finding points to a self-reinforcing cycle: functions that lack senior support receive fewer resources. With fewer resources, they struggle to deliver at full potential. Underperformance makes it harder to build the evidence base that would secure greater support. Without deliberate intervention, the cycle is difficult to break.
What are best-practice Early Careers functions doing to strengthen their strategy?
1. Build a measurement framework designed for strategic conversations: Move beyond activity metrics toward outcome-based evaluation that connects Early Careers performance to business priorities. The most effective functions track cause-and-effect relationships across the lifecycle, enabling them to show not just what they did, but why it mattered.
Talk to us about conducting a strategic review of your measurement framework
2. Convert data into narrative: Senior stakeholders rarely make decisions based on raw numbers alone. High-performing functions invest in meticulously designed performance dashboards that use communication and behavioural science principles to present data as a compelling story about organisational value. Position your function’s impact in the same language used by Finance, HR and the C-suite: outcomes, cost efficiency and business risk.
Discover how ECO can help your Early Careers function tell compelling stories with data
3. Build external visibility alongside internal advocacy: Actively share ambitions, success stories and insights with industry peers and wider business lines. Organisations that position themselves as dedicated investors in early talent build market credibility that strengthens both candidate pipelines and internal perception of the function’s strategic importance.
Talk to our Solutions Team about elevating your Early Careers brand
Download the full Best-Practice Early Careers Guide
The data in this article is based on findings from TST’s Early Careers Optimiser (ECO) methodology, which brings together quantitative and qualitative research from more than 200 Early Careers leaders across 30 global organisations.
For a comprehensive understanding of all six vectors of Early Careers best practice, download the full Best-Practice Early Careers Guide to discover the practices that consistently distinguish high-performing Early Careers functions.