SDS have a careers advice website and a customer support system which it uses to help individuals plan their learning and careers. 90% of school students in Scotland have an account with SDS, although the coverage reduces for over-18s. SDS keeps a record on an individual’s progress through education, training and employment up to age 24, and offers targeted interventions such as career coaching.
SDS wanted to understand common pathways through education and employment, and identify in which areas or demographics interventions were making a difference, and how they could be better targeted. The Scottish government has a standard metric for the deprivation level in each area of the country, the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020, or SIMD2020, which is very strongly correlated with educational outcomes. You can see an interactive map of the SIMD2020 across the country at simd.scot.