Privacy and cookies
Privacy
The National Careers Service is funded and managed by the Department for Education (DfE). For the purposes of relevant data protection legislation, the DfE is the data controller for processed personal information.
This page explains how we use and protect the personal information that we collect from you when you use the National Careers Service.
You can get detailed information on how we handle your personal information by visiting the Department for Education's personal information charter.
How we use your personal information
We collect your personal information so that the DfE can provide this service, which includes:
- the National Careers Service website
- services delivered through the website
- our national telephone helpline
- the local area careers advisory services, who provide face-to-face advice
When you use the National Careers Service, we collect personal information:
- to help us provide the services you've requested
- to provide statistical information to partner organisations
- for evidence and to support payments to organisations delivering careers advice on our behalf
- to improve our services by analysing how they are used
In addition, if you give your consent, we will collect your personal information:
- for customer satisfaction surveys
- to monitor our performance against our equality and diversity standards
- to make sure we are targeting our service to meet the needs of priority groups
- to carry out user research with you
How to withdraw your consent
If you choose not to allow us to collect additional information, you will still receive the same level of service.
If you do provide this extra information, you can choose to withdraw your consent at any time. You can do this if you:
- call an adviser on 0800 100 900 - tell them you wish to withdraw your consent for customer satisfaction surveys, and your ethnicity and disability information as appropriate
- speak to a local adviser by phone or face to face - tell them you wish to withdraw your consent for customer satisfaction surveys, and your ethnicity and disability information as appropriate
Where we collect personal information
Personal information is provided directly by you to the National Careers Service when you:
- talk to us on the phone or face to face
- use our website or webchat
- send us emails, text messages or online messages
We may collect personal information about you from other systems, or organisations funded by the DfE and from:
- the find an apprenticeship service
- the Department for Work and Pensions, if you've been referred by Jobcentre Plus
- organisations that pass on your details, so that we can make contact with you
Where we share your information
We may share your personal information with other services run by the DfE and partner organisations, where the law allows it or we have a legal obligation to do so. This is to support the delivery of careers advice and guidance services to you.
We may share information with the following:
- organisations working on behalf of local careers advice services
- organisations who introduce you to us, so that we can update them about your progress
- referral organisations, for example ones that we think may be able to offer you specialist support
- Ofsted, so that they can check the quality of advice given to you by the National Careers Service
- market research companies, who check how satisfied you are with the service you've received - though only if you've agreed to this
- educational institutions and organisations performing research and statistical work on behalf of the Department for Education, or partners of those organisations
How long we keep your personal information
We will only keep your information for as long as is necessary.
We may need to keep some of your personal information for up to 6 years after you stop using the service to satisfy our contractual audit requirements. Personal information kept for this reason will be restricted to a minimum and is to provide confirmation of payments to organisations who deliver careers advice services on our behalf.
Your information will be held securely and destroyed when it is no longer required.
How to get a copy of your personal information
You can request a copy of any of your personal information that the National Careers Service holds by contacting the Department for Education, or by writing to:
Ministerial and Public Communications Division
Department for Education
Piccadilly Gate
Store Street
Manchester
M1 2WD
How to tell us if your personal information is incorrect
You have the right to question any information we have about you that you think is wrong or incomplete. To do this, please contact us by:
- using the telephone service on 0800 100 900
- speaking to your local careers adviser, using the details they have given you
We will take reasonable steps to check the information's accuracy and correct it where necessary, and inform any organisations we may have shared it with.
How to withdraw from the National Careers Service
You can stop using the National Careers Service at any time in the following ways:
- call the telephone service on 0800 100 900 and tell them you want to stop using the service
- speak to a local adviser by phone or face to face and tell them you want to stop using the service
How to complain
Please let us know if you're unhappy with how we have used your personal information by contacting the Department for Education.
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.
How we use cookies
We put small files, called 'cookies', onto your computer when you use the National Careers Service website.
Cookies collect information about how you browse the site. They also:
- measure how you use the site so we can improve it and meet your needs
- remember the notifications you've seen so that we do not show them to you again
We do not use cookies to identify you personally. You'll usually see a message before we store cookies on your computer.
Third party cookies
Some cookies may be be placed on your computer by third parties and partners we work with.
We use these cookies to:
- help us understand how you use our website
- capture your comments and feedback through surveys
- provide online support if you need to speak to a careers adviser
Sometimes we’ll include content from other sites, such as YouTube, who may set their own cookies.
We might also share information about your use of our pages with our social media and advertising partners, such as Facebook. We do this to help improve the relevancy of advertising campaigns you receive from us.
If you decide to share a link to one of our pages, the service you share it on might set a cookie. We have no control over cookies set on other websites and you can turn them off but only through the website you’ve used.
Find out more about how to manage cookies.
Change your settings
You can change cookie preferences for this website at any time from the cookie settings page.
Cookie list
We use 2 types of cookie. You can choose which cookies you're happy for us to use.
Cookies that measure website use
Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics software to collect information about how you use the National Careers Service website. We do this to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its users, and to help us to make improvements.
You can opt out of Google Analytics cookies at any time.
We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data.
Google Analytics sets the following cookies:
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| _ga | This helps us count how many people visit this website by tracking if you've visited before | 2 years |
| _gat | Used to manage the rate at which page view requests are made | 10 minutes |
| _gid | Stores and updates a unique value for each page you've visited to help us improve your experience | 1 day |
We also set our own cookies to understand how people move through the site:
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| ai_session | This helps us count how many people visit this website by tracking if you've visited before | 30 mins |
| ai_user | Used to manage the rate at which page view requests are made | 1 year |
Microsoft Clarity
We use Microsoft Clarity to understand how you use the National Careers Service. This information helps us to improve the website.
Microsoft Clarity uses the following cookies:
| _clck | Checks if you’ve visited the National Careers Service before and makes sure you're given the same ID | 1 year |
| _clsk | Connects a user’s page views into a single session recording | 1 day |
| CLID | Identifies the first time Microsoft Clarity saw this user on any website that uses Microsoft Clarity | 1 year |
| ANONCHK | Indicates whether the MUID cookie is sent to ANID. ANID is not used by Microsoft Clarity, so is set to expire at the end of your session. | end of session |
| MUID | Identifies unique web browsers visiting Microsoft sites. These cookies are used for advertising, analytics and operational purposes | 1 year |
| MR | Indicates whether to refresh the MUID cookie | 7 days |
| SM | Used to synchronise the MUID cookie across Microsoft domains | end of session |
Other third party cookies that measure website use
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| id | Third party cookie to show relevant content based on the way you browse the site | when you close your browser |
| DSID | Third party cookie that manages user activity across devices. This is an auto generated encrypted unique id | 14 days |
Cookies that remember your settings
These cookies remember your preferences and the choices you make, to personalise your experience of using the National Careers Service Website
SmartSurvey
We use third party SmartSurvey software to collect information about how you use this website.
We do this to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its users, and to help us make improvements.
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| SmartSurvey Cookies | Third party cookies that allows us to link SmartSurvey responses to how you used the site using google analytics, and gather your survey response effectively. For more information, please see SmartSurvey privacy information | when you close your browser |
Other surveys
We also have our own feedback surveys to collect your comments and feedback. These surveys use the following cookies:
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| voc_Personalisation | Remembers the last job profile you visited | when you close your browser |
| JPsurvey | Remembers if you've given feedback on one of the job profile pages you've visited | 1 month |
| Ipsos-overlay | This cookie handles user satisfaction survey on our website | 28 days |
| Survey | Remembers if you've interacted with a survey on our website | 28 days |
Strictly necessary cookies
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| SF-TokenId | Third party cookie that manages site authentication | 1 hr |
| BNES_SameSite | This enables the website to function properly | when you close your browser |
| ARRAffinity | Helps you move around the website and to use our searches and other tools | when you close your browser |
| BNES_ARRAffinity | An encrypted copy of ARRAffinity which is used by our firewall to provide an extra level of security | when you close your browser |
| ASP.Net_SessionId | Used to store page data between http requests at our server | when you close your browser |
| BNES_ASP.NET_SessionId | An encrypted copy of ASP.Net_SessionId which is used by our firewall to provide an extra level of security | when you close your browser |
| dysac-session | This holds the user session Id and is not persisted when the browser closes | 24 hours |
| dysac-results | This holds the collapse status of each of the job categories and is not persisted when the browser closes | when you close your browser |
| seen_cookie_message | You may see a pop-up welcome message when you first visit a DfE site. This cookie saves a message to let us know that you've seen our cookie message and it should not be shown again | 28 days |
| cookies_policy | Saves your cookie consent settings | 1 year |
| cookies_preferences_set | Lets us know that you've saved your cookie consent settings | 1 year |
| ncs_hide_custom_banner | This cookie remembers your preference to show or hide the page banner / message. | when you close your browser |
Speak to an adviser
You can call 0800 100 900 or use webchat to speak to an adviser.
We're open:
- 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday
- 10am to 5pm Saturdays and bank holidays
We're closed on Sundays, Christmas Day and New Year's Day.