How to Get Into Fashion as a Teenager in the UK: Jobs, GCSEs, A Levels and Work Experience
If you know you like fashion but have no idea what you would actually do in the industry, that is a perfectly reasonable place to start.
You do not need to know at 15, 16 or 17 whether you want to become a buyer, designer, merchandiser, marketer, product developer — or something you have not heard of yet.
In fact, one of the difficulties with choosing a future in fashion is that some of its most visible parts are not necessarily the parts where most of the work happens.
You see the clothes, campaigns, fashion shows, celebrities and stores.
You do not necessarily see the buyer deciding which products a retailer should invest in, the merchandiser working out how much stock it needs, the product developer getting an idea made, the wholesale team selling a collection to stores, or the people managing production, marketing, e-commerce and data behind the scenes.
So the useful question at this stage is probably not:
What fashion career should I choose?
It is:
How can I find out enough about the fashion industry to discover what sounds interesting to me?
Here is where to start.
What kinds of jobs are there in fashion?
A lot more than fashion designer.
It can be easier to understand fashion jobs if you group them by the kind of problem they solve.
Creating the product
This includes roles such as:
fashion designer
textile designer
product developer
pattern cutter
garment technologist
These are different jobs. Designing an idea and working out how that idea can actually be manufactured are not the same thing.
Deciding what might sell
This is the commercial side of the product.
Roles include:
fashion buyer
merchandiser
planner
category or product manager
A buyer might help decide what a retailer should sell.
A merchandiser is much more concerned with questions such as how much, at what price, when, and whether it is actually selling.
Getting the product made
Fashion also needs people who understand production, suppliers, materials, timing, quality and logistics.
Depending on the company, that could include roles in:
production
sourcing
supply chain
garment technology
quality
operations
These jobs may be less visible from outside fashion, but the clothes do not reach a shop or customer without them.
Communicating and selling the brand
This includes areas such as:
fashion marketing
PR
social media and content
e-commerce
visual merchandising
journalism
wholesale and sales
Again, these jobs can be very different from one another.
Someone analysing an e-commerce campaign is doing very different work from someone pitching a collection to a department store.
Understanding the customer and the numbers
Fashion companies also need people who can work with:
sales data
customer insights
market research
budgets
pricing
forecasting
digital analytics
Fashion is a creative industry.
It is also a business.
The UK fashion industry itself is trying to make this wider range of careers more visible. UKFT’s careers work includes UKFT Futures, an online hub of job profiles, industry insights and training routes, designed to introduce young people to roles across fashion and textiles.
Which part of fashion sounds most interesting to you?
You are not supposed to know the answer from experience yet.
Instead, think about which sounds more interesting.
Do you think you would enjoy creating the product, figuring out what might sell, communicating the idea, organising how things get made, or understanding the numbers?
Your answer does not decide your career.
It just gives you somewhere to investigate first.
Take the short quiz to discover a few areas of fashion you might want to explore. It is not a career test — just a starting point.
What GCSEs and A Levels do you need for fashion?
There is no single set of GCSEs or A Levels that everybody needs in order to work in fashion.
That is because fashion is not one academic pathway.
A future fashion designer and a future buyer may eventually need very different things.
What GCSEs do you need for fashion?
Start by looking at the actual next step you might want to take rather than trying to assemble an imaginary set of “fashion GCSEs”.
For example, the Fashion Retail Academy’s Level 3 Fashion Business and Fashion Design diplomas both require four GCSEs at grade 4 or above, including Maths and English. They are two-year qualifications for 16–18-year-olds and are equivalent to three A Levels.
Other routes have different requirements.
So if you are choosing GCSE subjects now, do not assume that you have to take a particular subject simply because you are interested in fashion.
If you already think you may want a strongly creative route, subjects such as Art, Textiles or Design can give you useful experience.
But if you are more interested in fashion business, subjects such as Business, Economics, Maths, English, Media or Psychology can develop useful ways of thinking too.
And if you do not know which side interests you yet, that is another good reason to investigate before specialising.
What A Levels do you need for fashion?
Again, it depends on the route.
London College of Fashion gives a useful example of how different two fashion degrees can be.
Its BA Fashion Marketing asks for A Levels worth at least 112 UCAS points, without naming preferred subjects or asking for a portfolio.
By contrast, its BA Fashion Design and Development lists preferred subjects including English, Maths, Art, Design, Textiles and Science, and entry also depends on an assessment of your portfolio.
That difference is important.
There is no magic combination of A Levels called “the fashion route”.
If university is something you are considering, look at several actual courses you might realistically apply to and compare their requirements before making subject choices around them.
And remember that A Levels are not the only post-16 route.
Do you have to do A Levels to work in fashion?
No.
Depending on what you want to do, routes can include:
A Levels
fashion or business diplomas
BTECs and other Level 3 qualifications
apprenticeships
foundation courses
university later
entry-level work combined with further training
For example, the Fashion Retail Academy’s Level 3 programmes are designed for 16–18-year-olds and are equivalent to three A Levels.
The important thing is not to assume that one route is automatically better.
Ask what the route will actually teach you, what experience it includes and where students tend to go next.
How can you start exploring fashion while you are still at school?
You do not have to wait until university — or even until sixth form — to begin finding out what fashion work is actually like.
And you do not need an internship at a famous fashion house for your exploration to count.
There are several useful ways in.
1. Find out what the jobs actually involve
Do not stop at the job title.
If “fashion buyer” sounds interesting, find out:
what a buyer does in a normal week
what decisions they make
who they work with
what numbers they use
what junior roles can lead towards buying
Do the same for merchandising, marketing, product development, production or any other area that catches your attention.
A job often sounds very different once you understand the actual work behind the name.
2. Try programmes designed to expose young people to the industry
If you are still within the age range, the National Saturday Club Fashion & Business programme is worth knowing about.
It offers free Saturday sessions for 13–16-year-olds at participating universities and colleges, and introduces young people to a broader fashion world, from trend forecasting and visual merchandising to fashion journalism and retail management.
You may already be too old for it by the time you read this. That is fine — it is an example of the kind of programme worth looking for rather than the only route.
UKFT also takes its careers stand to fairs and events around the UK, where young people can meet the industry and learn about fashion and textile roles.
3. Go where the industry goes
You can learn a surprising amount simply by being around the industry.
Look for:
careers fairs
fashion exhibitions
talks and panel discussions
open days
pop-ups and launches
fashion-week public events
trade shows, once you meet their entry requirements
Do not assume that “Fashion Week” means you need an invitation to a designer catwalk.
Alongside the invite-only shows, London Fashion Week comes with exhibitions, installations and in-store events. In September 2026, the British Fashion Council’s programme included in-store showcases at Dover Street Market and Selfridges.
Trade shows are different because many are professional business events for registered trade visitors, and student access, where it exists, often comes with age or course conditions.
So always check who an event is actually for before registering.
Industry events can sometimes lead to another type of exposure too: temporary event work. Fashion events use event assistants, production support, retail staff, stylists, backstage teams and other temporary workers. These opportunities are more likely to be relevant once you are 18 or already studying, and requirements vary, but they are worth knowing exist. UAL’s own recruitment agency, Arts Temps, for example, places its students and graduates in temporary roles, including events work, that pay the London Living Wage.
You do not have to work the event for attending to be useful, though.
Watch what is happening.
Who is buying?
Who is selling?
Who is organising?
Who is talking to the press?
What happens backstage and around the show rather than on the runway?
What gets the most attention, and why?
Can you spot any patterns?
Is there anything you could recreate yourself?
The event itself can become a lesson in how the industry works.
4. Look at courses before you are ready to apply
You do not have to be applying this year to read course pages.
In fact, looking early can be more useful.
Compare:
what subjects different programmes teach
what their entry requirements are
whether they focus mainly on design or also on business
what graduates go on to do
whether students work with real companies
whether there is a placement or industry project
You may discover an area of fashion you did not even know was a subject.
5. Learn how a fashion business fits together
A job makes more sense when you understand why the business needs it.
For example, buying, merchandising, marketing and production may look like separate subjects.
But a single product decision can affect all of them.
What should we make?
Who is going to buy it?
What should it cost?
How many should we produce?
Where should we sell it?
How are customers going to discover it?
Those questions are connected.
That is also the idea behind Sim de la Mode: you build a virtual fashion label step by step while learning how different parts of the fashion industry connect through the decisions behind it.
Can you get fashion work experience at 16?
Sometimes, yes.
But work-experience opportunities vary considerably by employer, location and age, so do not assume that everybody interested in fashion will have access to the same opportunities.
The National Careers Service points out that competition for fashion jobs is strong and suggests getting as much work experience as you can, with internships as one option.
But there is an important distinction between:
learning about fashion work
and
having secured formal fashion work experience.
The second is useful.
It is not a prerequisite for beginning the first.
If you do find a placement, use it to investigate rather than simply collect something for your CV.
Ask yourself:
What does this company actually do?
Which departments are here?
Who makes which decisions?
Which jobs had I never heard of before?
What work looks interesting from close up — and what does not?
Discovering that you do not want a particular fashion job is useful information too.
What if you cannot get fashion work experience?
Then keep exploring.
Lack of formal work experience does not mean you have to wait until someone gives you permission to learn.
You could:
attend an open day, careers fair or industry event
go to public Fashion Week events or exhibitions
join a relevant school, college or Saturday programme
speak to someone who works in a role you are curious about
read fashion-business news, not only fashion media
follow a brand from product idea through launch and try to identify the business decisions behind it
create your own small fashion-business project
study how a favourite retailer chooses product, prices it and presents it
learn the basic structure of the industry
try making some fashion-business decisions yourself in a game
This is another place where Sim de la Mode can be useful.
It is not work experience, and a game does not replace being inside a real fashion business.
What it can do is give you a way to start encountering some of the questions a fashion business has to answer before you have access to a workplace.
Is it hard to get into the fashion industry?
Some areas of fashion are very competitive.
But “fashion is competitive” is not particularly useful advice if it leaves you imagining that there is one tiny door everyone is fighting to get through.
There are many different doors because there are many different jobs.
Your route may look very different if you are interested in:
garment technology rather than womenswear design
merchandising rather than styling
production rather than PR
e-commerce rather than magazines
buying rather than becoming a designer
One of the best things you can do early is widen your view of the industry before narrowing it again.
For a closer look at what teenagers can’t see from outside the industry, read Fashion careers are decided at sixteen.
What if you still have no idea which fashion career you want?
Good.
That means you are still exploring rather than pretending to know something you have not had a chance to experience.
I don’t know many people who planned their route into fashion at sixteen. But I know many who knew they wanted to be there. What twenty years in the industry has taught me is that the people who stay are the ones who genuinely love what they do. If you think you might too, it’s worth exploring.
Instead of asking:
What do I want to be?
Try asking:
What do I think I would like to try?
Maybe:
creating something
understanding customers
choosing product
analysing what sold
planning a campaign
solving a production problem
negotiating with people
working with numbers
explaining an idea visually
running a project
Then investigate the fashion jobs where that kind of work happens.
You might discover that the part of fashion you love is not the part you first noticed from outside.
So, how do you get into fashion as a teenager?
Start by getting closer to the real industry before you make expensive decisions about it.
You do not need a complete career plan.
You need more information.
A useful first set of steps is:
Pick three fashion roles you know almost nothing about. Find out what people in them actually do.
Check three real post-16 or university routes. Look at their subjects, requirements and career outcomes rather than only the course title.
Try something. That might be an industry event, Saturday Club, open day, careers fair, personal project, conversation with someone in fashion, or an interactive way of learning how a fashion business works.
And then ask yourself the question again:
Which part sounds most interesting now?
Your answer may have changed.
That is the point.
Want to see how the business side of fashion works?
Sim de la Mode is an iOS game that teaches fashion business through interactive missions where players build their own virtual fashion label.
Instead of only reading about the industry, you begin making decisions for your own label and seeing how different parts of a fashion business connect.
Mission 1 is free on iPhone and iPad.
Comments