Launching our new themed funding round: Pre-employment Vocational Training

With youth unemployment on the rise, it is more important than ever to develop clear and robust evidence on what works to help young people find and keep good work.

As the What Works Centre for Youth Employment, our What Works programme aims to build a stronger evidence base by testing employment programmes and improve national understanding of what really makes a difference for young people.

This themed funding round is focused specifically on pre-employment vocational training that is delivered with or without basic skills training as a component. Many organisations are delivering promising interventions in this space, but there isn’t enough good evidence about what works – especially for marginalised young people. To build a more effective system, we need to invest in approaches that are backed by rigorous evaluation.

By partnering with us, delivery organisations will receive funding and expert support to deliver and evaluate their pre-employment vocational training intervention as part of a randomised controlled trial (RCT). In addition to us funding your current pre-employment vocational training work to support young people into good work, this is an exciting opportunity to build your internal capacity for robust evaluation, demonstrate the value of your work, and contribute to a stronger youth employment system across the UK.

Learn more about the funding round and how to apply here. Further information is also available in our application pack.

The deadline for your stage one application is 23:59pm on Thursday 31st July 2025.