How the test works

01Guidance, not a verdict

The Big Fish career test and report help young people explore careers that may suit them. They are guidance for reflection and conversation. They are not a psychological or medical assessment, an aptitude test, or a guarantee of success in any study programme or job.

Results depend on the answers given on the day. Interests change, especially in the teenage years; we recommend taking the results as a starting point to explore, discuss with family, teachers or a career adviser, and try out.

02How careers are chosen

Your careers come from Big Fish's career library. Our scoring rules match them to your answers. The rules build on well-tested career models, such as Holland's six interest types. They weigh your interests most, then your motivations, the way you work and the settings you prefer. Some careers are added as future-facing picks or wildcards, to widen your view.

03Pay, job outlooks and career descriptions

Pay figures are yearly pay before tax for full-time work, in euros and rounded. For the United Kingdom they come from the Office for National Statistics (Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, 2026) and for the United States from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025). For North-West Europe, Southern Europe, Central & Eastern Europe (EU), Ukraine and Moldova, and the Caucasus and Central Asia they are our estimates: we build them from national statistics offices and published pay surveys in each country and weight the countries by size. The bar shows the middle half of earners and the tick the middle figure. These are reference values, not the pay you would earn in a particular country or job.

Job outlooks describe the EU as a whole and can be different in your country. They show the expected change in jobs from 2025 to 2035 and the openings left by people who retire, for each broad job group, from: European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop). Cedefop Skills Forecast 2026, Thessaloniki: Greece, Downloaded from: https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/projects/skills-forecast (CC BY 4.0). Whether AI is reshaping a job comes from the International Labour Organization's 2025 index of exposure to generative AI (CC BY 4.0).

Career descriptions include information from the O*NET database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 licence. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. Big Fish has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.

04Universities and degrees

Universities and degrees in the University Navigator come from each university's official website and from official national bodies. Every fact is stored with the page it comes from and the date we checked it, and we re-check those pages every month. Rankings come from the latest QS World University Rankings. Fees are a reference for EU and non-EU students (in the UK: UK and international students), not the amount you will pay.

When the Navigator has no degree for a career yet, the report may suggest study options found with the help of an AI system from public web sources. Entry requirements, fees and deadlines change: always check them on the university's official website before applying.

05AI-assisted parts

Some personal paragraphs and the study search are written with the help of AI and checked by our rules. They can be incomplete or wrong. If something in your report seems odd, tell us and we will look at it.

Virtual internships take place at made-up companies. The tasks are practice, not real work for an employer. The short written feedback on each task is written with the help of AI and checked by our rules; it can be incomplete or wrong.

06Photos

Photos of people in the test and report are illustrations, many of them created with AI. They show what a job or activity can look like, not real employees, students or results.

07Your decisions

Decisions about school subjects, studies and careers remain yours and your family's. For individual advice you can book a consultation with a Big Fish career coach.

The career test is not a support service for people in crisis. If you or someone you know is in danger, contact your local emergency number.