What students actually told us about the industry they are about to join
By Jo Harris ·
Before we built anything, we went to the source.
In February 2026 we ran a nationwide survey of students training in beauty, spa, aesthetics and wellness across the UK. Not employers talking about students. Not educators talking about students. Students, telling us how they actually feel about the industry they are about to walk into.
Seven in ten were aged 16 to 18. Two thirds were studying at Level 2 or Level 3. Ninety-nine per cent identified as female. And 85% said "count me in" when we asked whether they wanted to meet employers and connect with the wider industry.
That last number is the one I keep coming back to. The appetite is there. What is missing is the bridge.
The good news first
87% enjoy their course. That is a strong, engaged foundation, and it is worth saying out loud because the conversation about this industry so often starts with what is broken. It is not broken. These are motivated people who like what they are learning.
42% want to run their own business one day. Another 34% want employment, and 22% plan to carry on studying. This is not a generation short on ambition.
So the problem is not enthusiasm. It is connection.
Four gaps
The support gap
78% want help from industry professionals after they finish training. Only 28% attend industry events.
Read those two numbers together. Nearly four in five want a mentor, a contact, someone who has done it before. Fewer than three in ten are in the rooms where those people are. The demand and the supply exist and they are not meeting.
The clarity gap
14% of students are not sure which awarding body or qualification they are actually studying towards.
That is one in seven people, mid-course, who could not tell an employer or an insurer what their certificate will say. This is not their failure. Nobody sat them down and explained that VTCT, ITEC, CIBTAC and City & Guilds are different things, recognised differently, and that the difference matters when you apply for a job or buy insurance.
It is one of the reasons we published a plain comparison of every awarding body in the Hub.
The connection gap
38% are not aware that professional bodies exist at all.
Not "have chosen not to join". Not aware of HABIA, BABTAC, the FHT or any of the others. Nearly four in ten students are about to enter a profession without knowing there are organisations whose entire job is to support them, set the standards they will work to, and in many cases provide the insurance they will need.
The ambition gap
42% want to open their own business. Business education is not reaching them early enough.
You can leave a Level 3 course able to deliver a treatment beautifully and with no idea how to price it, what insurance you need, or whether you have to register with anyone. The skill is taught. The commercial reality around it often is not.
What this tells us about how to reach people
Two findings changed how we think about communication, and they are worth passing on to any employer or educator reading this.
Text message leads at 39%, ahead of email at 28% and WhatsApp at 22%. If you are emailing job opportunities to 17-year-olds and wondering why nobody replies, that is why. Communication has to be mobile-led.
Google and websites still lead discovery at 53%, but TikTok has grown into a serious channel at 23%. Nearly a quarter of students research this industry on TikTok. You do not have to like it. You do have to be findable there.
And when we asked where they want to work: beauty salons at 25%, spa, hotel and resort at 17%, clinic and aesthetics at 14%. The interest is spread wider than people assume.
What we are doing about it
None of these gaps is anyone's individual fault. No single business created them and no single business can close them. That is the whole reason B.O.B exists.
The Hub is where the answers to the clarity gap live: which awarding bodies are recognised, what different training providers actually deliver, which professional bodies serve which part of the industry, and what insurers require. All of it free to read, because a student who cannot answer these questions is not going to pay to find out.
The Community is the support gap. Getting the 78% who want a mentor into the same space as the people willing to be one.
And the Founding Event on 17 September is where we put the ambition gap in front of the people who can do something about it, in a room together, having the conversation properly for the first time.
If you employ people in this industry, or train them, or supply them, that room is where you belong.
The point
We asked the next generation first because it seemed obvious that we should. What came back was not a story about young people who are unprepared. It was a story about young people who are keen, who like their course, who want to build something, and who cannot find the door.
The door exists. It has just never been signposted.
Together, we can fix that.