If we want a fairer creative industry, we need to redesign the doorway

If you'd asked me in my final year at university how ready I was for the creative industry, I'd have said: completely. With my first-class degree and finessed portfolio, I felt bulletproof.

There is a kind of shock that hits when you land your first job, though. It isn't that you're untalented – just that the game is different. You're no longer designing for grades; you're building things that have to survive in the wild, which is thrilling and mildly humbling in equal measure.

Now, I'm somewhere in between wide-eyed student and fully formed creative oracle, still learning how to hold my own in a room and figuring out when to fight for the line and when to let it go. The gap people talk about after graduation is actually a huge opportunity for growth as you rewire from 'student creative' to 'working creative'.

The reality gap

University teaches you how to make beautiful things, and work teaches you why they exist in the first place.

At uni, the brief is a playground, because you're designing for an audience that wants to see your thinking, references, and craft. In the real world, you're designing for a business with targets, shareholders and CMOs. The difference between these two scenarios lies in context.

A polished deck proves you can curate, but commercial thinking proves you understand consequences. In other words, you can have the slickest portfolio in the room, but if you can't explain how your idea builds brand awareness, shifts perception or survives procurement, it's just vibes.

We're trained to obsess over kerning and case studies. We're not always trained to ask, "Will this actually work in the world?"

I remember my first real client presentation (that I'd rehearsed intensely) – then the questions came. Not "Tell me more about your inspiration," but "Why this route?" "What problem does it solve?" "Is this right for us?"

That was the moment I realised presenting is all about thinking on your feet. If you don't believe in your work, how can you expect anyone else – especially a client – to believe in it too?

The first piece of unfiltered feedback will sting, but it will ultimately sharpen your creative instincts. Remembering that feedback isn't there to protect your ego is a must. It's there to make the work stronger, so the worst thing you can do is treat your ideas like they're fragile. Share them early and let people poke holes. That's how something moves from "good" to "how did you think of that?"

At uni, you don't see these internal debates, rewrites, and strategy pivots, or the fact that sometimes the bravest move is to strip an idea back and not dress it up. None of that makes it into a glossy portfolio spread.

The honest bit: pay, pressure and belonging

There are costs we don't always talk about, like the return train tickets into the city for interviews and the coffees you say yes to because you should. Before you've even secured a role, you've already invested money just trying to get in the room.

In cities like London, where entry-level salaries are stretched thin, the cost of living becomes a filter. If you can't afford to work for little (or nothing) for a while, the door narrows, and your access gets limited.

Unpaid placements, especially, can widen that gap. They're positioned as stepping stones, but for many, they're simply not financially viable, which shapes who gets to stay in the industry long enough to build a career.

Then there's the more 'invisible' bits, like imposter syndrome in rooms where you don't see yourself reflected and the confidence gap that creeps in when you don't have family friends in agencies or an inherited network to lean on. Particularly for young women, that lack of proximity can make you question yourself, even when you've earned your seat.

These barriers might be subtle, but they're structural, and if we're serious about broadening the industry, we have to acknowledge them.

What could you learn in 20 days?

Yes, university gives you that craft, but twenty days inside an agency gives you context.

Programmes like the 20(S) Exchange aren't about collecting praise; they're about pressure-testing your thinking with real feedback and portfolio reviews that ask harder questions.

You quickly realise that a polished deck isn't the same as a commercially sharp idea, and that budgets, timelines, clients, and strategy have to be part of the creative equation. You see how ideas survive constraints and how they flex without losing their core. You start picking up the things no lecture really teaches, like how to speak in rooms without shrinking, how to build on someone else's thought, and how to take notes and improve the work rather than defend it.

Most importantly, you feel what it's like to belong to a team, not as "the intern" or "the student", but as someone whose ideas are genuinely in the room.

If we want better pipelines, we need better placements, and it's not that complicated to check the boxes. Placements should offer live feedback, expose juniors to real client conversations, and show people their potential, thereby building their confidence. Perhaps most importantly, they should invite in people who don't already know someone, and pay them a decent wage.

Sometimes, the difference between staying in this industry and leaving it comes down to whether they feel they belong.

Beyond the panel

I love seeing women in leadership, because I genuinely believe that representation at the top shifts culture, but if we only celebrate the women who've already made it, we ignore the bottleneck in the middle.

While panels are inspiring, access is transformative. It's powerful to see someone you can actually relate to – not just at the finish line of a decades-long career, but a few steps ahead of you. When every International Women's Day lineup is made up of CEOs and founders, it can feel quite distant. Aspirational, yes. Attainable? Sometimes less so.

If studios swapped one glossy IWD panel for one paid early-career placement, the impact would be bigger.

Redesigning the doorway

The industry doesn't lack talented young women. Walk into any grad show, and you'll see that immediately. The ideas are there, ambition is there, and the graft is definitely there.

What's missing are the bridges between university and studio, between potential and opportunity, and between being interested in the industry and actually having a way in.

Early access shouldn't be down to luck. If we want a fairer creative industry, we can't just celebrate the women who've broken through. We have to redesign the doorway itself.

I'll say it one more time: talent isn't the issue, access is – and that's something we can actually fix.