Essential Employment Skills Fund

• Value: Discretionary
• Application deadline: 10 December 2026
• Eligible expenditure: Funding can support the evaluation of UK programmes helping young people aged 16 to 24 who face significant barriers to employment to develop essential skills and access good-quality jobs. It may also support partnership development, approaches to measuring employment skills and mechanisms for sharing learning and effective practice.

Who can apply:

Partnerships that are already established between frontline delivery organisations and independent evaluators may apply. It is hoped that the fund will encourage new collaborations between employers, educators, charities, researchers and local government.

Eligible Expenditure:

The funding is to evaluate UK programmes, share learning and inform the wider scaling-up of effective practice.

The primary aim of the programme is to improve the evidence on effective support for young people aged 16-24 facing significant barriers to work to develop essential employment skills and ultimately access good jobs.

The funding is to initiate or develop partnerships between stakeholders, which may include employers, educators, third sector providers, and local and regional government, to sustain support for young people. In addition, there is also interest in funding projects that aim to improve mechanisms for sharing learning or to advance approaches to measuring essential employment skills.

The fund is for programmes that support young people aged 16-24 or a narrower age group within that range, such as 16-19 year olds, living in the UK.

There needs to be a clear focus on young people facing significant barriers to work which may include focusing on young people with one or more of the following risk factors for being NEET:

• Low or no academic qualifications
• Persistent school absence or exclusion
• SEND, especially having an Education, Health and Care Plan
• Mental health difficulties
• Experience of the care system
• Young parenthood
• Being a young carer
• Belonging to a Gypsy, Roma or Traveller community
• Living in geographic areas with higher rates of youth unemployment