Self-employment support Toolkit resources

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Self-employment support

Self employment support is highly effective in enabling young people with an interest in entrepreneurship to start working for themselves.

Last updated: 26 August 2026

Education

Employment

Training

In the 12 to 24 months after self-employment support starts, a large majority of young people who take part are likely to become self-employed as a result of the intervention. However, the evidence is insufficient to provide a specific figure.

Key findings

Headline insights about this component based on current high-quality evidence

Positive

Supports entrepreneurship

Self-employment support has an excellent success rate in supporting self-employment for young people with an existing interest.

The research suggests that self-employment support is likely to have a very large positive impact on young people’s involvement in self-employment at 24 months after the start of the intervention. The probability of an impact in this range is 100%.

The impacts of self-employment support may be higher for older young people within the 16-24 age group.

Reduces unemploment

Programmes are associated with large reductions in the probability of unemployment. Participants are very unlikely to have worked for an employer or be employed by someone else which is unsurprising given the aims of the programmes.

Negative

Reduces engagement in education

Associated with a large negative impact on secondary school completion, reflecting the strong focus on a particular kind of work, rather than on gaining qualifications and generic skills for employment by others.

What is self-employment support?

Self-employment support provides young people with advisory services and access to support, finance and markets for the development or growth of youth-owned businesses.

Typically self-employment support

includes business advice and mentoring support

offers business skills training

provides sources of funding such as access to credit, monetary or in-kind grants for start-up or growth, and micro-franchising initiatives or mechanisms

Who is self-employment support for?

Any young person who:

has an interest in becoming self-employed
is pursuing entrepreneurial activities
wants to develop or grow a self-started business venture

Who can offer self-employment support?

Any UK organisation — business, charity, public-sector body or social enterprise.

How long is self-employment support?

Timescales vary very considerably, depending on programme aims, scale, and target group.

How is self-employment support funded?

Funding may come from diverse sources or from a mixture of sources including:

government (local or central)
charities

Some programmes are solely or jointly funded by third sector, community and business groups.

What are the delivery settings?

College, university, or independent training provider in-person or virtual
Schools and communities
Charities or third sector organisations

Benefits for young people

Self-employment support can:

offerr greater ownership and flexibly, which can motivate engagement in the labour market when other options cannot flex to needs and context

help young people access financial support or other practical resources

connect young people to professional networks and sources of guidance and support to enable them to start, grow and sustain their venture beyond the programme delivery

The cost rating for self-employment support is moderatemoderate

Calculations are based on insights from available high-quality studies on the complexity of delivery requirements and estimated associated costs.

Outreach and recruitment activity

Tailored and varied with associated staffing, materials, scheduling and administrative costs. Delivery to young people with complex needs or vulnerabilities may require a more targeted approach to recruitment.

Delivery intensity

Duration, content and intensity of programmes can vary considerably

Delivery partners

Training providers and potential intermediaries that need to co-ordinate in partnership, supported by programme planning and management, requiring additional admin resource

Delivery expertise

Specialist and varied, including expert advisers, business consultants, and/or mentors, as well as specialist training resources for young people. Consultants with sector-specific knowledge and a good understanding of local economies and opportunities may also be needed.

Wages, financial assistance or incentives

Recruitment costs and wages for specialist tutors, and provision for programme administration and management staff where appropriate. Programmes that include an element of financial support for young people to start businesses may have substantially higher costs.

Delivery settings

Can be at a college, university, or independent training provider in-person or virtual. Often require physical learning materials and resources. May be a combination of 1-2-1 coaching and group networking or training.

Outreach and recruitment activity	Tailored and varied with associated staffing, materials, scheduling and administrative costs. Delivery to young people with complex needs or vulnerabilities may require a more targeted approach to recruitment.
Delivery intensity	Duration, content and intensity of programmes can vary considerably
Delivery partners	Training providers and potential intermediaries that need to co-ordinate in partnership, supported by programme planning and management, requiring additional admin resource
Delivery expertise	Specialist and varied, including expert advisers, business consultants, and/or mentors, as well as specialist training resources for young people. Consultants with sector-specific knowledge and a good understanding of local economies and opportunities may also be needed.
Wages, financial assistance or incentives	Recruitment costs and wages for specialist tutors, and provision for programme administration and management staff where appropriate. Programmes that include an element of financial support for young people to start businesses may have substantially higher costs.
Delivery settings	Can be at a college, university, or independent training provider in-person or virtual. Often require physical learning materials and resources. May be a combination of 1-2-1 coaching and group networking or training.

Considerations for decision makers

Based on existing evidence, we’ve identified some common features that support the commissioning, design and delivery of effective youth employment programmes:

Ensure outreach and awareness activities are effective and targeted to reach those most likely to benefit

Read more about Ensure outreach and awareness activities are effective and targeted to reach those most likely to benefit

Design, fund and deliver outreach and recruitment activities that raise young people’s awareness, with targeted initiatives to reach young people with an interest in self-employment and entrepreneurship who are most likely to benefit.

Also consider how best to identify and engage the most suitable partners for a programme. Engagement should be timely and clear, in ways that raise awareness and facilitate recruitment, enrolment, and sustained engagement.

Tailor and structure programmes well to support access and maintain engagement

Read more about Tailor and structure programmes well to support access and maintain engagement

Design, fund and deliver programmes that:

prioritise local economic needs and match with the interest of young people
offer sustainable funding models
last sufficiently to allow for business to establish and for young people to test and learn in a supportive environment

Take a joined-up, collaborative approach

Read more about Take a joined-up, collaborative approach

A strong relationship between policymakers, learning providers, funders and community organisations including Mayoral Strategic Authorities and Local Skills Improvement Plan areas supports effective youth employment support programmes.

Design, fund and deliver programmes that foster collaboration with education providers such as colleges to improve access to relevant business experience.

Encourage systematic monitoring and evaluation to help build and strengthen the evidence base

Read more about Encourage systematic monitoring and evaluation to help build and strengthen the evidence base

Support providers and delivery organisations to accurately and systematically capture and communicate data and milestones and track programme outcomes. This may include structured and standardised tracking forms, or developing realistic programme-specific performance frameworks.

For funders and commissioners – ensure recorded data, reporting and assessment captures a full range of appropriate and relevant youth employment and related outcomes to help rich understanding to ensure rich picture of what programmes do.

Encouraging reporting commonly recognised metrics allows evaluation to be easily comparable and included in the growing evidence base.

Prioritise staff recruitment, retention and training to build trust and reduce turnover

Read more about Prioritise staff recruitment, retention and training to build trust and reduce turnover

Design, fund and deliver programmes that:

recruit staff as early as feasible, allowing time for training which can support initial engagement and familiarisation
pay staff appropriately and seek where possible to employ staff on long-term or permanent contracts to ensure consistency and continuity of delivery
hire staff with appropriate knowledge, experience and/or qualifications, and provide sufficient training, ongoing support, and opportunities for peer learning
consider hiring staff with similar lived experiences to the target population and/or prior experience of working with young people in the local area
ensure low staff-to-participant ratios where possible, to support capacity to engage with participants on resource-heavy tasks such as co-designed action plans
clearly define roles and responsibilities and communicate intended outcomes and benchmarks to strengthen accountability

About the evidence

What’s included in the analysis?

Read more about What’s included in the analysis?

Included studies	7
Location(s)	High-income countries
Outcome	Self-employment probability, employment probability, unemployment probability, school completion
Comparator	'Services as usual' / Business as usual

The Youth Employment Toolkit brings together evidence from robust studies in high-income countries that:

measured the intervention’s impact against what would have happened without it
defined self-employment support as a targeted intervention to support youth employment outcomes

Find details of individual studies, as well as other systematic reviews of youth employment evaluations, in the Youth Employment Evidence and Gap Map.

More information about included studies can be found in page 55-60 of the full CNMA report. The specific evidence profile for self-employment support can be found on page 113.

The evidence strength ratings for self-employment support reflect the number of studies included in the meta-analysis. Studies were scored on reported design, sample size, approach to attrition, and definitions of interventions and outcome measures. More detail can be found in the technical guide.

Implications for evaluators and commissioners

Read more about Implications for evaluators and commissioners

Other research suggests that self-employment programmes should be carefully targeted to young people with an interest in self-employment.

Further impact evaluations and other research have an important role to play in identifying which young people are most likely to benefit, and learning more about the nature and quality of their self-employment.

The current evidence can be strengthened by taking a consistent approach to incorporating standardised metrics for education, employment and training outcomes as well as outcomes that indicate work quality.

Self-employment support