Every year around this time, I think about the same thing: somewhere right now, a 22-year-old is sitting down at a desk in a bank they’ve dreamed of working for, wondering if they’re going to be any good at this.
That’s the moment our industry exists to get right. Not the recruitment marketing, not the assessment centres, but the moment someone new sits down and has to be genuinely useful, fast – in an environment they’ve never experienced before.
A few things worth knowing about where we are on this right now:
We’ve just launched a free Graduate Readiness Assessment so leaders can benchmark their own programme in nine questions.
This year’s graduate cohorts are already well into their programmes across multiple regions. At the same time, many of our clients – L&D leaders, Heads of Talent and CTOs who will ultimately bring these graduates onto their teams – are already planning for the 2027 intake. That planning window is short, and it is easy to repeat last year’s approach instead of asking whether it delivered what the business needed.
We know from 20+ years of doing this that the gap between academic training and business-ready performance is real, and it’s expensive. A graduate who feels underprepared in their first three months is significantly more likely to leave within twelve months and replacing them typically costs 1.5 times their salary. That’s not a talent problem. It’s a preparation problem, and it’s solvable.
The Early Careers programmes that succeed aren’t the ones with the most polished induction deck. They’re the ones where a graduate is working with your actual tools, your actual codebase, your actual workflows, from week one, taught by someone who’s done the job, not someone reading from a slide. That’s the whole premise behind how Neueda builds every client programme: no two have ever looked the same, because no two clients’ environments are the same.
It’s also why we measure relentlessly. Across our programmes, we’re seeing 97% manager satisfaction, not because the training looks good, but because graduates are landing capable of contributing, not just capable of completing a course.
If you’re responsible for a graduate or early careers programme and you’re honestly not sure how it stacks up, we’ve put together a short, free assessment: nine questions, an instant personalised report, scored across the four areas that consistently separate the programmes that work from the ones that don’t. It’s not a sales pitch. Clients who have used it tell me they found it to be a genuinely useful starting point for the conversation you’re probably already having internally about 2027.
That 22-year old sitting down at their desk deserves better than a generic induction. So does the technology team waiting for them to become useful. Getting that right is, genuinely, the thing I’m proudest of at Neueda.
Success Stories
Success Stories
We delivered a structured, immersive graduate training programme for technology graduates as they transition into their new roles. The programme provides a strong foundation in financial markets, essential technical skills, and professional competencies, ensuring graduates can contribute effectively from day one.
Success Stories
Ensuring 500+ technology graduates have the “Day 1 Readiness” skills to help deliver world-class fintech solutions and services.
Success Stories
How we support a global giant in investment banking every year with graduate onboarding
Per-token prices have collapsed. Enterprise AI bills have not. The gap between those two facts is where most engineering leaders are currently losing the ROI argument, and it is not a pricing problem.
AI has the potential to significantly accelerate software delivery, but moving from individual tools and experiments to meaningful enterprise impact…
A 10-point diagnostic to assess whether your engineering organisation is ready to scale agentic AI safely across the SDLC.
