People are joining the workforce with Council support
North Ayrshire Council is helping residents to get their first foot on the career ladder through Modern apprenticeships and a range of employability programmes.
The council is proud to be a Community Wealth Building local authority, a Young Person’s Guarantee Employer and a Disability Confident Leader and this supports the council’s approach to finding and creating sustainable employment for people.
This includes:
- a Modern Apprenticeship programme, supporting local young people into council jobs
- a broad range of successful programmes, delivered by the Employability and Skills team in partnership with council services and partners, which help to enhance residents’ job opportunities.
- the Skills for Life initiative, supporting parents into paid work experience, which leads to sustainable employment with the council
- the Environmental Skills & Training Academy Intermediate Labour Market (ILM) programme, offering paid work experience for unemployed people to access jobs with the council and
- Graduate Apprenticeships, in partnership with the University of the West of Scotland, to provide council staff with opportunities to earn degrees while working.
The council has around 7,600 employees, and attracting talented young people to join the workforce is essential for continuity, innovation and filling roles in the years ahead.
The Employability & Skills team works across all council departments to deliver a range of initiatives designed to support young people, parents, people with disabilities and long-term unemployed into sustainable employment.
Residents are offered opportunities to join the workforce in North Ayrshire and are helped to overcome barriers including a lack of confidence, transport costs and access to childcare.
Over the past two years, Skills for Life has worked with 135 parents and 81 of these people – 60 per cent – have secured jobs. The ILM programme has started 71 people, with 48 of them – 68 per cent – securing jobs.
Quote: These programmes show that, as a Council, we are working hard to tackle inequality and to develop a skilled workforce for the future. The principle of Community Wealth Building – which sees wealth being retained here in North Ayrshire thanks to the Council and our partners increasing employment and using local resources – is helping to improve life for residents. Recent statistics, from the End Child Poverty coalition, show that levels of child poverty here in North Ayrshire have fallen by 4.9 per cent between 2022-23 and 2023-24. Although there is still a lot of work to do, this reduction was the largest of all Scottish councils, and these employability initiatives and our collaborative approach to working with partner organisations have helped achieve it. I would like to congratulate the Council teams involved for successfully helping to improve life for our residents.
Quote from: Councillor Tony Gurney, Cabinet Member for Green Environment and Economy
Cabinet met earlier this month and noted the positive outcomes achieved through the various Employability programmes.
Cabinet also agreed to an expansion of the Environmental Skills & Training Academy to offer paid work experience with the Council to 60 unemployed people in teams including Streetscene and the Equal programme, which supports people with disabilities into employment.
Read more about the recent End Child Poverty coalition report, titled Local Child Poverty Statistics 2025.
North Ayrshire Council’s Employability Service delivers a range of support through its Your Next Move, Working North Ayrshire programme.
Contracted partners delivering Your Next Move, Working North Ayrshire include We Work for Families and CEIS Ayrshire, who all contribute to delivering a wide range of support to help individuals prepare and progress into employment.
Please note: To access any of the opportunities delivered by Your Next Move, Working North Ayrshire please email the team at employability@north-ayrshire.gov.uk You can also find out how Your Next Move, Working North Ayrshire can help you with things like CVs, application forms, Modern Apprenticeships, paid work experience, interview techniques and secure employment by going online here. Follow the team on Facebook at Working North Ayrshire.
Published: 26 June 2025