Career Pathways Initiative
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Career family

Entrepreneurship & Enterprise

Starting and growing your own venture, from a small trade to a scalable company, or building new things inside an organisation.

  • Mainly Leading & Enterprising
  • Also Creating & Expressing
  • Also Organising & Managing Detail

What the work involves

A closer look.

Entrepreneurs find a problem people will pay to solve, test it cheaply, sell, manage money and keep going through setbacks. Income is irregular at first, and most successful founders learn by testing small before spending big.

Typical roles

  • Small business owner
  • Startup founder
  • Social entrepreneur
  • Franchise owner
  • Business development lead
  • Intrapreneur or innovation lead

Entry routes in Nigeria

  • Any SSCE stream
  • No single required qualification; business, marketing or a technical skill all help
  • Incubators, accelerators, enterprise programmes and trade associations
  • Registering a business with the Corporate Affairs Commission when ready

Requirements change. Always verify with the official body, JAMB or the institution.

Skills that matter

  • Selling and listening to customers
  • Basic bookkeeping and cash management
  • Testing ideas cheaply
  • Resilience and decision-making
  • Building a team

By life stage

Where you could start.

Secondary school

Often-linked SSCE stream: Any. Check with your school.

Undergraduate

Business administration, entrepreneurship, marketing, or any technical course paired with an enterprise programme. Internships: startups and small businesses.

Fresh graduate

Starting a small side venture, working in a startup, sales or business development roles.

Young professional

People often start ventures from what they already know: a trade, a profession or a problem they saw at work.

Vocational routes, entrepreneurship, public service and further study are all valid paths. We don’t show salaries or employment rates without a dated, verified source.

Ask a practitioner

Questions to ask.

Use these in a 15–20 minute conversation with someone who works in this family.

  1. What does a normal week look like for you?
  2. What do you enjoy most about the work, and what is hardest?
  3. How did you get into this field? Were there other routes you could have taken?
  4. Which subjects, courses or qualifications really matter, and which matter less than people think?
  5. What skills do you use every day that school didn’t teach you?
  6. What do people misunderstand about your job?
  7. If you were starting today, what would you do first?
  8. Who else should I talk to?

Test it

Ways to check if it suits you

  • Informational conversation

    Talk to one person who does the work, using the questions on this page.

  • Job description review

    Read three real adverts for roles in this family and list the requirements that keep coming up.

  • Small project

    Try a small piece of the work yourself, then reflect on whether you enjoyed it.

  • Short course

    Take a free or low-cost introductory course to test your interest before committing.

  • Job shadow or workplace visit

    Spend a few hours watching the work happen. CPI arranges visits for participants.

  • Mentor conversation

    Discuss what you have found with a mentor or coach.

  • Official qualification research

    Check requirements with the professional body, JAMB, the institution or the employer directly.

Related

You might also explore.

Business, Finance & Accounting

Keeping organisations’ money, people and operations in order: accounting, banking, finance, HR and management.

Explore

Sales, Marketing & Communications

Helping organisations understand customers, tell their story and sell their products and ideas.

Explore

Law, Governance & Public Service

Making, applying and upholding the rules a society runs on, and delivering public services.

Explore

Want to know if this fits you?

Take the self-assessment, then use your roadmap to test this direction.

Take the Self-Assessment Join the Initiative