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Schools & Individuals

Experience | Judgement | Opportunity

Junior Trader brings financial markets to life through practical investment challenges, expert-led learning and real-world experiences.

Whether you’re a school looking to enrich your curriculum or a student wanting to take part independently, our programmes develop financial literacy, investment judgement and skills that stand out on UCAS applications, CVs and in interviews.

Since 2008, Junior Trader has helped over 1000 young people gain valuable experience of financial markets and careers in finance, regardless of their background or professional connections.

Schools can enter teams through our supported programmes, while individual students can join the Investment Challenge directly.

Please contact us for details of subsidised places.

For Schools

Bring the City into your classroom with an investment challenge that takes learning beyond the curriculum.

Junior Trader combines expert-led launch lectures, interactive learning resources and team-based competition to develop financial literacy, judgement and confidence.

Suitable for curriculum enrichment or extracurricular activities, with flexible in-person and remote delivery, teacher guidance and individual feedback for every team.

For Individuals

Interested in finance, investing or business? You don’t need to wait for your school to get involved.

Enter the Junior Trader Investment Challenge independently, test your judgement against other young investors and gain practical experience that goes beyond the classroom.

Demonstrate initiative, build your financial knowledge and gain valuable experience for UCAS applications, CVs and interviews, with personalised feedback on your work.

UK Schools

The 26/27 program officially starts on the first dealing day, prior to which students will have enrolled, formed teams and received their induction lecture and the outline to the competition. The dealing day is typically the last day of the December term when all investments are locked in.

At the midway point of the competition, all trades are liquidated, and the teams are tasked with providing their written report. With equal weighting between the two elements, a strong report can overcome any trading mishaps!

Final placings and certificates are delivered with personal feedback by the end of the first half term in 2027.

International Schools

For our international school partners, the lecture sequence is slightly different.

Teams are able to enter the competition remotely, and the in-person lecture takes place in the new year, giving teams an insight into report writing and retrospectively analysing performance with a market expert.

What sets Junior Trader apart is the personal contact with teams. Whether students receive a lecture before the competition about the origins of the markets, midway to review performance, or at the end to review outcomes, all participants receive personal feedback.

Those schools in the IDofE network still qualify for certification.

City Lecture Tours: take it outside the classroom

Our guided walking tours of the City of London or Manchester turn the streets themselves into the lecture. Led by a former Investment Bank Director and plc CEO, students walk the actual sites where modern financial markets developed, learning how trading and finance evolved through history, geography and economics – and where they might fit into that story. Tours work just as well as a History or Geography enrichment trip as they do a finance-focused one, and we tailor the content and pace to size and age of the group.

What students get out of it

Students build teamwork, communication and time management skills, gain a genuine taste of how financial markets work, and hear directly from people working in the sector – the kind of insight that’s hard to come by without a personal connection to the industry.

Get your school involved

Whether you’re looking to bring the core programme into your enrichment timetable, add JT+ for your most engaged students, or book a private City tour for an economics, history or geography group, we’ll work with you to fit it around your school year.

“Every single one of our Economics students put Junior Trader on their UCAS applications last year.”

Head of Sixth Form

Interested in Junior Trader?