Nuffield Foundation Essential Employment Skills Fund 2026: Up to £500,000 to Strengthen Employment Outcomes for Young People in the UK

The Nuffield Foundation has launched the Essential Employment Skills Fund, a major new funding initiative offering grants of up to £500,000 to build robust evidence about how young people facing significant barriers to employment can develop the skills, attributes and behaviours needed to access and progress into good jobs.

The fund focuses specifically on young people aged 16–24 living in the United Kingdom who face significant barriers to entering the labour market. Rather than simply supporting skills programmes, the initiative seeks to establish high-quality evidence about which interventions work, why they work, for whom they work, and how successful approaches can ultimately be expanded or adapted to different settings.

The outline application deadline is 10 December 2026, according to the Nuffield Foundation’s announcement of the fund. Shortlisted applicants will subsequently be invited to submit full applications in 2027.

About the Nuffield Foundation Essential Employment Skills Fund

The Essential Employment Skills Fund has been established in response to a major challenge facing the UK: many young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds or facing substantial barriers to work, do not have equal opportunities to develop the skills that employers value.

The Nuffield Foundation argues that employment-related skills development needs to be more effectively integrated across education, training and youth-support systems. At the same time, these interventions need to be supported by stronger evidence about what actually works.

Through the new fund, the Foundation therefore aims to support the rigorous evaluation of existing UK programmes that help young people aged 16–24 develop essential employment skills and move toward good employment.

Grants of up to £500,000 are available for evaluation, with the Foundation anticipating that most evaluation awards will fall between approximately £200,000 and £400,000. There is also potential for additional support toward programme-delivery costs where those costs cannot be covered from other sources, including through partnership funding arrangements.

Why Has the Essential Employment Skills Fund Been Created?

Youth unemployment and economic inactivity represent serious long-term challenges.

Young people who struggle to enter the labour market or gain meaningful employment experience during early adulthood may face consequences extending far beyond their first few years of working life. These can affect their longer-term career trajectories, earnings and well-being.

At the same time, employers continue to report difficulties finding young people with the skills they need.

The Nuffield Foundation identifies an important disconnect: although employers and educators increasingly recognize the importance of essential employment skills, these competencies do not necessarily receive sufficient emphasis within curricula, assessment and accountability systems.

Opportunities to develop these skills can consequently vary substantially according to a young person’s circumstances and background.

The Essential Employment Skills Fund aims to address an important evidence gap: Which approaches actually help young people facing significant barriers to work develop essential employment skills and progress toward sustainable employment?

What Are Essential Employment Skills?

For this funding programme, the Nuffield Foundation uses “essential employment skills” as an inclusive term covering a broad range of transferable skills, attributes and behaviours valued by employers across industries and occupations.

These skills are associated with important labour-market outcomes such as gaining employment, progressing at work, job satisfaction and earnings.

The Foundation highlights research identifying areas such as:

• Collaboration
• Communication
• Creative thinking
• Information literacy
• Organising, planning and prioritising
• Problem solving
• Decision making

Other established frameworks cover comparable competencies, including speaking, listening, creativity, adapting, planning, leadership and teamwork.

Applicants do not have to adopt one particular skills framework. They may use an appropriate existing framework that suits their programme.

However, proposals must clearly identify the specific essential employment skill or skills that the intervention intends to develop.

Importantly, the Fund is not intended to finance the creation of new definitions or frameworks for essential employment skills.

Main Aim of the Fund

The central purpose of the Essential Employment Skills Fund is to strengthen the evidence base concerning effective approaches for helping young people aged 16–24 who face significant employment barriers develop essential skills and ultimately gain access to good jobs.

The Nuffield Foundation intends to achieve this by supporting rigorous evaluations of relevant programmes and facilitating the dissemination of findings and practical learning.

The longer-term objective is not merely to determine whether individual projects succeed. The Foundation wants the evidence generated through funded projects to help successful practices be:

• Expanded;
• Replicated;
• Adapted to different contexts;
• Incorporated into wider education and employment systems; and
• Used to reduce inequalities in young people’s employment outcomes.

The Foundation is also interested in projects that improve mechanisms for sharing learning or advance methods for measuring essential employment skills.

How Much Funding Is Available?

The Essential Employment Skills Fund offers substantial financial support.

Maximum grant for evaluation: Up to £500,000

The Foundation expects most evaluation grants to fall within the range of approximately:

£200,000 to £400,000

In appropriate circumstances, there may also be additional funding available to contribute toward programme-delivery costs when these cannot be funded from other sources.

Organizations considering requesting delivery funding are encouraged to contact the Nuffield Foundation before submitting their application to discuss the proposed arrangements.

Who Can Apply?

The Essential Employment Skills Fund is primarily designed around organizational partnerships rather than applications from individual young people.

This distinction is important.

The young people aged 16–24 are primarily the target beneficiaries of the programmes being evaluated, rather than individual applicants for the £500,000 grants.

For this particular fund, successful teams will require expertise in two major areas:

1. Independent evaluation and research expertise
2. Frontline programme delivery expertise

The Nuffield Foundation therefore anticipates receiving applications from partnerships between an evaluator/research organization and a delivery organization.

The partnership must already have been established before an application is submitted, and the research design should be developed jointly.

Applicants must also clearly explain the division of roles and responsibilities and demonstrate how the evaluation will retain sufficient independence and impartiality.

The Foundation expects the evaluation partner to act as the lead applicant.

Who Should the Programmes Support?

Funded programmes must work with young people aged 16–24 living in the UK, although applicants may choose to concentrate on a narrower age group within this range.

For example, an intervention could specifically target people aged 16–19.

However, the central emphasis must remain on young people who face significant barriers to employment.

Applicants are expected to clearly identify their intended target population and provide a persuasive justification for selecting that group.

Young People Facing Significant Barriers to Work

The Foundation identifies several circumstances that may increase the likelihood of a young person struggling to access employment.

Projects could, for example, focus on young people experiencing one or more factors such as:

• Low or no academic qualifications;
• Persistent absence from school;
• School exclusion;
• Special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), particularly young people with an Education, Health and Care Plan;
• Mental health difficulties;
• Experience of the care system;
• Young parenthood;
• Responsibilities as a young carer;
• Membership of Gypsy, Roma or Traveller communities; or
• Residence in geographic areas experiencing comparatively high youth unemployment.

These examples should not be interpreted as a requirement that every funded programme must cover every listed group.

Instead, applicants need to define their particular target population and provide evidence explaining why the selected group faces meaningful barriers to employment.

Reaching Young People Who Need Support Most

The Nuffield Foundation places particular emphasis on recruitment and sustained engagement.

Applicants must provide a realistic strategy explaining how they will:

1. Identify eligible young people;
2. Recruit them into the programme;
3. Maintain their participation and engagement; and
4. Avoid restricting participation to individuals who are comparatively easy to reach.

This is significant because programmes intended to reduce employment inequality can fail to achieve their purpose if they primarily attract individuals who are already comparatively well connected to education, training or employment services.

What Types of Programmes Can Be Funded?

An eligible programme must have an explicit objective of developing at least one essential employment skill among participating young people.

Many programmes will naturally address several skills simultaneously.

The development of essential employment skills may form part of a broader programme containing other forms of support.

Potential activities could include:

• Literacy, numeracy or digital-skills development;
• Vocational education or training;
• CV preparation;
• Interview preparation and employment support;
• Enterprise and entrepreneurship training;
• Mentoring;
• Coaching;
• Volunteering;
• Community activities;
• Work experience;
• Work-based learning;
• Peer support;
• Mental-health support; and
• Assistance with practical barriers such as housing or benefits.

This provides applicants with considerable flexibility in designing or adapting programmes, provided that essential employment skills remain an explicit and measurable component.

Existing and Promising Programmes Are Prioritized

Organizations should note that the Fund is not primarily designed to finance entirely new programmes developed from scratch.

Given the level of funding available and the emphasis on rigorous evaluation, the Nuffield Foundation expects to support existing programmes that already demonstrate some evidence of promise.

Projects may nevertheless adapt or refocus an established intervention.

For example, an organization could propose testing an existing programme within a different environment, population or delivery context.

The programme should be based on a clear and convincing theory of change, supported by previous testing, relevant evidence and/or theoretical literature.

Robust Impact Evaluation Is Essential

Evaluation is not an optional addition to this funding opportunity; it is one of its defining requirements.

Funded programmes must include a robust impact evaluation.

At minimum, the evaluation must examine:

• Changes in the targeted essential employment skills; and
• Participants’ progress toward employment.

Progress toward employment could include outcomes such as:

• Starting a job;
• Beginning an apprenticeship;
• Accessing voluntary employment;
• Participating in a supported internship;
• Completing work experience; or
• Enrolling in further training.

The appropriate evaluation methodology will depend on the intervention and its stage of development.

However, the Foundation expects sufficiently large samples for robust analysis and credible evidence that observed outcomes can be attributed to the programme rather than unrelated external factors.

Depending on the programme, this may require control or comparison groups or high-quality qualitative impact methodologies.

Process and Implementation Evaluation

Applicants must also include process and implementation evaluation.

This recognizes that even a well-designed programme may achieve different outcomes when delivered in different real-world environments.

Factors influencing implementation may include:

• Organizational culture;
• Stakeholder priorities;
• Practical constraints;
• Physical circumstances;
• Government policy;
• Regulation;
• Local labour-market conditions; and
• Wider political or institutional environments.

Evaluation should therefore examine not only whether an intervention works but also how it is implemented and what contextual factors influence its effectiveness.

Young People’s Voices Must Influence the Programme

The Fund also requires applicants to consider the contemporary experiences and perspectives of young people themselves.

Proposals should demonstrate how evidence from young people has informed—or will inform—the programme’s design and delivery.

Organizations may establish a youth advisory board or youth engagement group, although this specific structure is not compulsory.

What matters is that applicants can explain how young people’s own perspectives on employment barriers and potential solutions are incorporated meaningfully into the programme.

Partnership and Collaboration

Another important ambition of the Fund is to strengthen partnerships around youth employment.

Funded projects may bring together stakeholders including:

• Employers;
• Education institutions;
• Training providers;
• Third-sector organizations;
• Research and evaluation organizations;
• Local government; and
• Regional government.

The Foundation hopes these collaborations can continue supporting young people beyond the lifespan of an individual funded project.

Support Available from the Nuffield Foundation

Potential applicants can seek feedback before submitting a formal application.

The Foundation welcomes a brief one-page project description from prospective applicants seeking initial feedback.

Delivery organizations that do not yet have an evaluation partner may also request information about potential evaluators who have agreed to be approached by applicants to the programme.

Successful projects will receive additional support from the Nuffield Foundation during implementation, including assistance relating to communications and impact.

The Foundation also intends to connect grant holders with other funded organizations and its wider stakeholder network, enabling organizations to exchange learning and promote effective practice.

Essential Employment Skills Fund Application Timeline

The current timetable is:

Outline application deadline: 10 December 2026

Shortlisting decisions: February 2027

Full application deadline: April 2027

Final funding decisions: July 2027

Earliest possible project start: September 2027

Applicants should also check the official funding page for updates and FAQs before finalizing their submissions.

How to Apply

Applicants must follow the Nuffield Foundation’s Outline Application process and carefully review the Foundation’s Guide for Applicants before submitting.

The Foundation expects the evaluation partner to be the lead applicant.

Prospective applicants should therefore establish their evaluator-delivery organization partnership before applying and jointly develop the proposed research and evaluation design.

Apply for the Nuffield Foundation Essential Employment Skills Fund

Why This Funding Opportunity Matters

The Essential Employment Skills Fund is particularly significant because it combines youth-employment intervention with rigorous evidence generation.

Many organizations already deliver employability, mentoring, training, work-experience and youth-development programmes. However, policymakers and practitioners need stronger evidence about which approaches produce measurable improvements, particularly for young people who are furthest from the labour market.

The Fund is therefore designed to move beyond simply financing individual interventions.

Its wider ambition is to generate knowledge capable of informing future education, training, youth-support and employment systems, allowing promising interventions to be improved, scaled or adapted.

The initiative also recognizes that employability is not determined solely by technical qualifications. Communication, collaboration, planning, creativity, problem solving, adaptability, teamwork and similar transferable competencies can play an important role in helping young people navigate an increasingly complex labour market.

Conclusion

The Nuffield Foundation Essential Employment Skills Fund 2026 represents a substantial funding opportunity for organizations working at the intersection of youth employment, education, training, research and programme evaluation in the United Kingdom.

With up to £500,000 available for evaluation, and potential additional support toward programme-delivery costs in appropriate circumstances, the Fund aims to generate robust evidence about how young people aged 16–24 who face significant employment barriers can develop essential skills and ultimately access good jobs.

Strong proposals will require more than an innovative idea. Applicants should have an established and promising intervention, a compelling theory of change, an appropriate target population, credible plans for reaching young people facing significant barriers, a strong independent evaluation design, meaningful engagement with young people’s perspectives, and an established partnership between frontline delivery and evaluation expertise.

Organizations considering applying should begin preparing well ahead of the 10 December 2026 outline application deadline, particularly because partnerships should be established and the research design co-developed before the application is submitted.

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