Our mission
Increasing social mobility for young people
Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not.
Being able to realise your potential depends on who your parents are, your education, your skills, and also where you grew up.
Young people have big aspirations about their futures, yet schools do not always have the resources to bring these to life. Without the networks, employer connections and confidence, young talent is unnecessarily wasted.
And since the pandemic, the disadvantage gap continues to widen.
The attainment gap between underserved young people and their wealthier peers is growing, a decade of progress was lost during the pandemic
Our theory of change
Our impact goal is for social mobility to increase:
- young people from underserved backgrounds discover their amazing talents, develop valuable new employability skills, and take their first step into higher education or the world of work.
- employers value young people's talents, rather than their background, opening up new employment opportunities.
We do this by delivering inspiring, skills-based, facilitated workshops led by a The Talent Foundry facilitator and supported by industry volunteers across three themes:
- Lightbulb Moments
- Career Insights and Building Skills
- Intensive Connections
Our outcomes
We expect to see several short and medium term changes in young people, educators and employers following engagement in our programmes. This includes increased awareness, understanding, interest and confidence in skills, confidence and abilities.
Download our Theory of Change (PDF)
72% of young people from the most deprived neighbourhoods cite having a good job or career as one of their main priorities when they grow up
Who we work with
We work with UK schools and colleges that have a higher-than-average number of students eligible for Pupil Premium funding (Pupil Deprivation Grant in Wales and Pupil Equity Fund in Scotland). This also includes Further Education (FE) Colleges where we know a disproportionate number of students eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) attend.
Over 1,900 schools are eligible for our support.
Within our Intensive Connections programmes, we work directly with students who are, or have been, eligible for Free School Meals, will be the first in their family to go to university, are young carers, care-experienced, or have a disability. Some programmes have a geographical focus where opportunities are focused on underserved locations such as coastal or rural towns.
We focus our efforts in the most underserved communities in the UK and are free for schools to book for groups and individual young people.
Socioeconomically disadvantaged students from social mobility coldspots have half the earning potential as those from geographic hotspots
2022-2025 strategy
In 2023-24 we supported 64,988 young people across England, Wales and Scotland discover what they are amazing at and inspire them to think big about their futures.
Improving social mobility is a team effort. Our impact is only possible through the funding and volunteer support from the business community and the public sector organisations that partner with us.
This allows all our opportunities to be offered to teachers or schools at no cost to them.
Our 2025 strategy is focused on expanding and diversifying our offer to combine curriculum and career-linked activities with essential skills development opportunities.
This included a new activity framework consisting of Lightbulb Moments, Building Skills and Career Insights, and Intensive Connections aimed at Key Stage 3-5 (P7-S6) and contributing to Gatsby Benchmarks.
We deliver our bespoke programmes with partners through nationwide opportunities or target place-based interventions.
Feedback from our programmes demonstrate that the engagement of role models from industry is fundamental to inspiring and connecting young people to the world of work. Industry volunteers bring their own unique, career story into the classroom. This reassures young people that they do not need their futures mapped out and helps them to recognise the skills and strengths that are valuable in the workplace.
2024-2025 will be the third year of our three-year strategy. We will:
- Work with 60,000 young people - balance our reach programmes (Lightbulb Moments and Building Skills and Career Insights) against an increased focus on Intensive Connections and place-based work
- Most disadvantaged – increase opportunities for young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds with additional drivers of social mobility (eg geographic disadvantage, those at risk of becoming NEET or those facing additional barriers such as care-experienced young people)
- Continue to expand range of industries we work with to respond to educators needs
- Secure additional funding for the development of collaborative programmes to continue to support local industries and employers connect with talented young people.
- Share our expertise with our corporate partners and the social mobility eco-system
- Focus on further development areas including fundraising, marketing, impact, alumni and quality
We want to help reduce the number of young people at risk of becoming NEET (not in education, employment, or training), which, for those from disadvantaged backgrounds is 26% of 18-24 year olds.
Our story
The Talent Foundry was founded in 2009 by Amy Leonard MBE.
Initially set-up as a grant funder with the objective of providing fully funded extra-curricular activities for school students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, we wanted to give these students opportunities that were experienced and enjoyed by their peers from more affluent schools.
In 2011, we transitioned to a service delivery organisation and developed an operating model of Design, Deliver and Evaluate, which created bespoke programmes and delivered in partnership with corporate donors. That year we also established our amazing ‘Rock Assembly’ event a combination of a career's festival and pop concert, becoming a real highlight of the year for the students we work with.
Only 18% of people whose parents have no qualifications go on to gain a degree.