The Department for Work and Pensions has set out plans to create 300,000 new work experience and training placements over the next three years, all of them aimed at young people aged 16 to 24. The placements form part of a wider £2.5 billion youth employment support package, and they are being directed at sectors where employers say they are short of staff, construction, health and social care, and hospitality among them.
The announcement is the latest step in the Government’s Youth Guarantee, an effort to give every young person the chance to either earn or learn. It comes as the number of those not in education, employment or training, known as NEETs, sits at close to one million.
According to the Department for Work and Pensions, the scheme is meant to reverse that figure. It also follows an interim report by the former Labour minister Alan Milburn, who warned that Britain risks creating a “lost generation” unless young people are given real chances to gain workplace experience. His review, published on 28 May, concluded that the “first rung” of the career ladder had thinned.
How the Placements Will Work
Most of the new opportunities are to be delivered through Sector-based Work Academy Programmes, or SWAPs. These are short, government-funded schemes for jobseekers claiming benefits, combining training with a spell of hands-on experience and a guaranteed interview with an employer at the end. They are not a new invention (tens of thousands run already) but they sit at the centre of this latest expansion.
There is some evidence behind that emphasis. According to the DWP, around four in ten people who take part in a SWAP move into sustained employment within six months, going on to earn an average of £1,400 a month. Construction has been one of the busier areas: almost 17,000 people started construction-focused SWAPs during 2025/26, helping to address shortages as the Government tries to push ahead with housebuilding and infrastructure. Major employers including Manchester Airport Group, JD and Gatwick Airport are already taking part.
Employers, and the Rest of the Guarantee
Gatwick offers a sense of how the programme looks on the ground. The airport’s chief, Pierre-Hugues Schmit, said its SWAP, run with the DWP and Jobcentre Plus, had seen 81 participants gain a Level 1 NCFE qualification in “Introduction to Aviation”, with more than half moving into work at the airport since February 2026. He described Gatwick as committed to creating pathways into high-skilled careers, and pointed to its existing apprenticeship and internship schemes.
The placements are only one strand of the wider plan. Alongside them, ministers have pledged a £3,000 Youth Jobs Grant and 50,000 additional apprenticeships. The Work and Pensions Secretary, Pat McFadden, said the case for the approach was a simple one. “The evidence is clear, give young people real work experience and the chances of them building a lasting career increase dramatically,” he said. “That’s why we are creating 300,000 new placements, backed by some of Britain’s biggest employers, to give young people the skills, confidence and connections they need to get on.”
The recent figures give some context for the scale of it all. Nearly 100,000 SWAPs were delivered in 2025/26, up by about 15,000 on the year before, and a record 25,000 of those starts were among 16- to 24-year-olds, compared with 21,000 the previous year. The Government is aiming to lift overall starts to 115,000.
