Youth Careers Collective is a wide and engaged network of organisations working together to address the youth unemployment challenge. In partnership, we are all working to ensure young people with barriers to entering employment or training, are given the support they need, to develop their skills, experience, knowledge and access, in order that they can move into employment and rewarding careers.
Employers
Each year over 450 businesses give their valuable staff time and access to their workplaces, to support our young people, providing opportunities that many would otherwise never be able to access. Employer partners range from large multinationals, such as GSK and Cisco, to local Small and Medium Enterprises, and high-street hair salons and pharmacists.
In 2024/25, 53% of our employer partners were micro or small, 8% of our employer partners were medium size and 39% of our employer partners were large.
Schools and Colleges
In a typical year Youth Careers Collective partners with 70 to 80 schools and colleges, to develop bespoke interventions and support, to meet the unique needs of their students and communities. It is only through a collective approach with these education institutions that we can reach and engage young people with barriers to entering employment or training.
Councils and Community Partners
Youth Careers Collective includes numerous local community partners, youth services and local councils, without whom our work wouldn’t be possible. When we develop any services, we always do it in concert with local representatives, pooling shared knowledge of the service gaps, identifying needs, and responding to challenges and opportunities. In this way we ensure we are taking a robust community-led approach, avoiding duplication and competition for limited resources.
Funders
The support we get from national, regional and local funders is essential to how we function and fund our work, but the best funders give more than money, acting as a vital partner of the Collective. Funders such as Inspire Hounslow, Heathrow Community Trust, the Mayor of London, Youth Futures Foundation, Charities Aid Foundation and others, work with us to really understand and respond to the challenges young people face today, as they navigate education and their transition into work, as well as providing access to expertise and evidence, peer-learning networks, training and guidance, to ensure our work is robust and impactful.
Families and Carers
We know that families and carers, more often than not, are key to shaping the opportunities, prospects and life chances of young people. Through our partnerships with schools, colleges and youth services, the Collective proactively engages parents and carers, ensuring they have the knowledge, guidance and access they need to be able to support their children to pursue rewarding careers, as well as helping us to understand the challenges and barriers to work that the young people may be experiencing.
Young People
Nothing the Collective does is without the express guidance and direction of the young people we serve. They are central to how we operate, prioritise, make decisions and take actions. Our paid network of Young Associates, largely made up of programme alumni, alongside the young people in the communities we serve, draw on their lived experience and insights to advise and support us in our programme development, delivery and strategy, ensuring the work we deliver is relevant and appropriate in addressing the unique challenges they are facing. In addition, for every activity we deliver we capture learnings and feedback from the participants themselves, ensuring that their input and experiences inform how we continually adapt and improve.
We are a small and passionate team with years of experience in supporting young people to improve their employment opportunities and transitions into work. We don’t do this alone however, and our work is only possible thanks to the thousands of volunteers, who every year generously share their time, experience and expertise.
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