Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the "skills" or "employability" agenda which has long been anathema to the Humanities disciplines need not be the threat it appears to represent. This paper aims to examine the concept of realistic work environments and their focus, not only the provision of hard and soft skills, but also the democratic and transformational power they provide for the students who work in them. Design/methodology/approach: The paper will focus on the challenges of running a realistic work environment and the issues this raises for both the facilitator and the students. Working with the authors own experience and a framework of models such as situated learning and student-centred learning, the challenge and excitement of working with an informal mixed curriculum and forms of assessment that measure reflective and experiential learning is discussed. Findings: Applying the Rogerian person-centred approach to self-transformation and to learning, it is argued that these situated learning spaces provide real opportunities for growth and development and that the shared sense of responsibility provides students with an opportunity to develop and transform in ways that are often hard to realise in the delivery of traditional Humanities modules. Originality/value: Whilst Humanities subjects aim, in theory at least, to provide a developmental bridge between being and becoming, so too do employability skills, and it is in the developmental dimension that the two can meet and work well together. With this in mind the audience is encouraged to think about the challenges facing the Humanities in the burgeoning knowledge economy.