In 2025, the King’s Trust launched their new five-year strategy with a clear vision: ending youth unemployment.

By providing 11-to-30-year-olds with vital skills, confidence-building, and direct pathways to work, the Trust believes every young person should have the chance to succeed, no matter their background or the challenges they face.

The King's Trust has partnered with Skills Builder Partnership because they see the value of a common language and a shared approach for building essential skills. For young people, it means having the explicit language to identify and articulate their strengths. For the King's Trust, it provides a robust way to capture and demonstrate the wider impact of their life changing programmes. And for employers, it secures a future workforce equipped with the highly sought essential skills that drive workplace success.

By collaborating with the Trust's impact, content and delivery teams, key essential skill steps have been identified that enhance outcomes and unlock learning. Young people are supported every step of the way to reflect on and capture their progression. This journey is illustrated by Deborah, whose time with the Trust helped reshape her career and find her voice.

Case study: Deborah’s journey

Deborah, from London, joined The King's Trust in 2024. After graduating from the University of Southampton, she began her career in corporate diversity and inclusion, a field she was passionate about. However, after experiencing burnout, she found herself rethinking what she wanted from the next stage of her career. As someone who is neurodivergent, taking a step back allowed her to reflect, rebuild her confidence and explore new opportunities. Through The King's Trust's Get Started programmes, she discovered a passion for communications and storytelling, which ultimately led her towards a career in external affairs.

My journey began with Youth Voice, which gave me my first real introduction to civic engagement. Visiting the Lambeth Mayor's office and speaking directly with the Mayor made something click for me. It showed me that young people have a place in decision-making spaces and that my perspective had value.

Shortly afterwards, Jack from The King's Trust introduced me to Get Started in Radio, and that became a turning point.

Before Get Started in Radio, having already gained experience in communications through EDI work and luxury fashion, the programmes helped me refine my interests and focus them into a clear career direction. Spending a week exploring radio, podcasting and storytelling was my first real experience of creative communication in action. It even inspired me to start my own podcast. Although it remained a personal project, it gave me the confidence to develop my voice and explore storytelling on my own terms.

Building on that foundation, I later completed the six-week Get Started in Digital Marketing & AI programme. I realised I didn't just enjoy creating content; I loved how communication can influence people, spark conversations and create opportunities. The course also changed how I viewed AI. As someone who is neurodivergent, it's become a practical tool that supports my creativity, organisation and productivity.

Looking back, each programme built on the last. Youth Voice introduced me to civic engagement; Radio strengthened my confidence to communicate; and Digital Marketing & AI helped me see how those interests could develop into a career. Together, they gave me the confidence to apply for opportunities I might once have talked myself out of.

Today, I'm completing an internship in external affairs, something I don't think I would have had the confidence to pursue a few years ago. Through The King's Trust, I also received a Development Award to help cover my travel costs during my first month. Support like this can make a real difference. Sometimes the biggest barriers facing young people aren't talent or ambition, but simply being able to afford the journey.

Looking back, every opportunity helped build my confidence. The King's Trust didn't just introduce me to new experiences; it helped me recognise strengths I already had and gave me the confidence to build a career around them. Sometimes all a young person needs is someone to open a door and believe they're capable of walking through it.

The power of a shared language

Deborah’s experience highlights exactly why the partnership between The King’s Trust and Skills Builder Partnership is so vital. Often, young people possess incredible talent, resilience, and potential, but they lack the explicit vocabulary to name the skills they are developing along the way.

By embedding the Universal Framework into these programmes, young people are given a structured, highly transferable language to identify and articulate essential skills like Communication, Creativity, and Adapting.

As young people step through the doors opened by The King's Trust, this Framework ensures they build the self-awareness and vocabulary to carry their skills forward into interviews, higher education, and new career contexts.

Want to learn more about how the Universal Framework can transform youth outcomes? Discover how you can embed essential skills into delivery, or explore how you can use the Framework within your own organisation to help young people identify, articulate, and transfer their strengths.

Explore the Universal Framework | Get in touch with our team