We don't need no education

As many teenagers wait anxiously to find out if they're going to uni, others have decided, in the heat of the AI revolution, that it's time to explore a different route.

- Zoë Beaty reports

Two summers ago, Joe Thorp woke up on a hot Thursday in August to take part in a rite of passage familiar to most British teenagers: A-level results day. While many of his classmates lay awake worrying about university offers, Joe already knew he wasn't going. He had a plan - and it didn't involve lecture halls. He calmly opened his results to find he'd got an A in accounting, an A in Level 3 core maths, and two D*s (distinction stars, the highest grade possible) in his Btec business diploma - and went home to celebrate.

In the weeks that followed, as friends loaded duvets and saucepans into cars bound for campuses across the country, Joe stayed in his childhood bedroom making cold calls, building his own vision for a new business specialising in social-media marketing for tradeworkers, such as local building and electrical firms. Joe’s decision wasn’t based on his grades not meeting the requirements of his chosen university - nor was it made on a whim.

Quite the opposite: he had spent the months prior to results day researching his higher education options, much like everyone else in his sixth form; filling in Ucas application forms and imagining life away from his family home in Somerset.

“There were quite a few things about uni that a lot of people go for - like going out all the time, for example, or living on their own away from home - that just didn’t seem like big enough pros for me,” he explains. What’s more, the highly changeable jobs market, rapidly contorting around the increasing impact of AI, felt unreliable against the cost of university.