To feel scared about my dds future

If she doesn't know what she wants to "do" with regards to a career is it really worth paying out for university at this time?
There are likely plenty of jobs she could possibly get now (other than retail) that she might not have even thought of.
It all depends on the industry where you live. Many former "factory" towns don't have factories anymore but they have the distribution or packing warehouses.
I was very unaware of what industry was actually in my hometown when I was 18 so I missed out on potentially 100s of jobs that were out there.
If she wants a job she needs to look beyond the local shopping centre.
She can still go to university in a few years time if that's what she wants.

Also take up every opportunity to learn skills at uni.
There will likely be optional classes run by the tech/data/maths/stats departments on using Excel, introduction to python coding, using other software, making appropriate use of AI tools etc
It's free. Make the most of it. No one should be going to grad job applications without being able to function in Excel and understand why not to put the company data into CHATGPT so show that she can do that

What can she do:

Keep plugging a way at getting a part time job. Christmas retail will start recruiting in October. Pubs and restaurants take on extra staff for the Xmas period - look at staffing agencies. It's only a temporary job, of course, but will then show other employers that she has some experience.
The university will also employ students in the bars, cafes, helping with events etc- get her to start looking asap at their jobs portal. It's a smaller pool of applicants than jobs outside uni

Volunteer but do it strategically - if she is interested in educational or health and social related psychology, then volunteering as a mentor for teenagers or people with certain health conditions would be very useful in future applications. The university will almost certainly have a volunteer co-ordinator/info pack and may run their own schemes like widening participation where they go into schools or work with people disengaged from education. Also look at any youth groups or groups working with people with mental health problems as they often have befriending or mentoring volunteering.
This will help a lot with future job applications.

Summer jobs: again, be strategic. She wants to earn money but also show useful experience ideally plus maturity, ability to deal with challenges. Look at jobs working in holiday camps for children including specialist ones offering respite or hosting families with children with special needs. Look now at old job adverts - how can she be a good applicant? There may be opportunities with the university to complete a first aid course for example - student unions often have a St Johns Ambulance group who do. Check both universities in your city. It then ticks a box for summer job applications next year. Uni volunteering will often mean she gets a DBS disclosure done so again, great to have that in place before summer job applications.
First aid and DBS also opens the door for babysitting and nannying - summer nannying is a potential job while also showing working with kids. Look at Koru Kids for example.

Extra curriculars: look at the student union groups, join something interesting, help run it and have a position on the management group for it. Doesn't matter if it's netball or knitting, it shows the right social skills.
If there is a psychology group, join it. Go to their talks, be on the board, suggest events, meet the speakers who come. It shows real interest in the subject beyond just the classes. Lots of students show very little interest in their subject beyond the minimum so stand out.

This. So many people do psychology degrees and there aren’t that many positions within the industry. Many students don’t seem to understand that they can’t become psychiatrists… they would need to study medicine to do that.

Is there a reason why she has not tried to get work before now?

DD1 is 21 and going into her third year at university and has been working for five years. She worked full time for a year before going to university.

DD2 is 17, would be going into Y13 next month but has AuADHD and is definitely done with education for the time being anyway and has been working for a year.

I've always though getting a job was just as important as education, particularly for DD2 who is not into studying.

It isn’t a bias though is it if for one university you need 3 a stars to get in to the same subject as another university you need 3 cs? One is factually a higher academic standard than the other?

She will be fine. Employers don’t really care what uni you went to unless it was Oxbridge. The classification of degree is what they look at alongside subject, work experience, internships and volunteering, projects etc.

She needs to do some great extra/supracurriculars and be a hard working well rounded candidate.

Psychology seems like a safe bet for now and her choice of university doesn't matter a single bit. What does matter is the acknowledgement from her that in order to become a clinical psychologist, she needs to buckle up for many many years now.
As far as I am aware, there is no shortage of jobs although she may need to be prepared to travel. Our service routinely advertises for assistant psychologists because they do tend to move around throughout the stages of their training.
After qualifying, nothing stops her from setting up her own practice either.
Although services are pretty stretched, London still has a vast number of vacant posts in the NHS for psychologists and AHPs. It can be much more difficult in other parts of the country, though.

I would do a bit more research on this op. My understanding, and I may well be wrong, is that psychology is one of the degrees with a fairly low return on likelihood of getting a related job. You either have the difficult conversations now, or in 4 years time with £40k debt. Although the pgse option detailed above is a good idea, but rather just start that from the beginning by being a TA and qualifying as you go.

If it helps, the 50% reduction headlines are a load of bollocks! The data is based on a set of job listings at one website. Plenty of "graduate jobs" (which isn't even something easily defined) aren't advertised as schemes on the same site.

People use it to mean ‘not a real university’. Categorising universities with terms like Russell Group and polytechnic betrays a bias which is elitist and, the vast majority of the time, completely false.

psychology is one course where, so long as it’s BPS accredited it doesn’t matter where you do it. It requires a masters anyway to anything actually in psychology

I certainly wouldn’t be worrying about grad jobs. My experience with having and knowing lots of young grads is that it is taking longer but they’re getting those jobs. I would highly suggest she’s looking at getting volunteer / work / leadership experience to demonstrate those skills to help her stand out when she does start looking

Polytechnic haven't been a thing since the early 90s.

Stop worrying ... she will find her niche eventually

My daughter went to a ex polytechnic for psychology - got a first then got on doctorate first time of applying which is almost unheard of I believe. She’s now a clinical psychologist with camhs. She volunteered for Samaritan all through uni which might have helped

Clinical or or educational psychology are very long and demanding pathways requiring many more years study than undergrad. If she is interested in educational psychology, teaching experience is generally a prerequisite. Maths, science and language teachers are still in demand, so depending on Alevel choices, pgce might be a viable choice for after uni. A family member has done this route (psychology, pgce) and is about to start teaching maths next term, having found it relatively straight forward to secure a position.

Honestly I don't think I would be considering uni nowadays unless I was clear how it was benefiting a career path and I could justify the fees and associated debt.

Psychologist here. As long as her course is BPS accredited it won't make any difference to her chances of becoming a psychologist. I have not the slightest clue where my colleagues studied their first degrees, and it makes no difference to how likely they are to be employed.

Polytechnic isn’t rude but they haven’t existed since 1992.

In 1992 they were all made universities.

That’s three years in the future. A lot can change in three years.

if she’s staying home she’ll have much less debt than most graduates and she’ll be in a better position.