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Work Experience Can Be Inclusive and Scalable: Sharing Digital Futures Results with the Digital Economy Minister
Yesterday I had the privilege of sharing the results of our Digital Futures Work Experience Programme with Baroness Lloyd of Effra CBE, Minister for the Digital Economy at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
At We Job Box, our mission is simple:
Democratising opportunity through future-ready work experience.
Too many young people are told they lack experience.
The truth?
Many were never given the chance to gain it.
Four months ago we set out to change that thanks to a grant from the Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund and in partnership with Aston University.
Before founding We Job Box, I spent 36 years at the BBC, as a journalist, producer, Head of Social Media and later Executive Producer at BBC Academy leading digital and AI upskilling programmes and co-chair of BBC Women in STEM
Across that time one question kept coming back:
Who gets access to opportunity… and who doesn’t?
Because work experience is one of the strongest predictors of employment success.
Yet many young people, particularly those without strong networks, simply never get the opportunity.
So we built something different.
The Digital Futures Work Experience Programme: a 50-hour employer-led programme designed for the digital economy.
Over the past three months we have:
• Supported 250 young people
• Partnered with 30+ employers including BBC, Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, HSBC, Rolls-Royce SMR, Barclays, Chelsea FC, London Stock Exchange Group, Irwin Mitchell, Deloitte, and more
• Delivered real employer challenges through digital micro-jobs
• Built a virtual campus where students interact directly with employers
• Created a mobile digital classroom so we can deliver the programme anywhere opportunity is limited.
But the real story is the young people.
Young men who had been out of education or work for years - arriving early every day because they didn’t want to miss the employer briefings.
Students who had never spoken to an employer before presenting strategic ideas with confidence.
And then there’s Ayaz. After two weeks on the programme he told us how the experience has helped him refine his energy and restore his sense of hope.
More importantly, he said it had helped him regain discipline in his life.
Sometimes the impact of opportunity is about helping someone believe in their future again.
Thank you to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund for supporting this work.
And to the employers helping us prove something important:
Work experience can be inclusive, scalable, and transform futures.
Thank you Sharold Palmer, FRSA, Kiran Nandra, Abiola Madubata, Siu Mun Li, Victoria Tsoy PhD Kim Rowell, Najiba Kasraee, Ajan Manoharan, Athanasia Vargiamidou, Simran Akter, Maleeha Mughal, Grace Whitehouse, Francis Hayward for sharing your experiences with the Baroness also.
