AI Use: AI tools were used to support source discovery and to structure the article for clarity. All research, verification, drafting, and final editorial decisions are fully human led. Learn about our AI policy.
UKPoliticsDecoded is an IMPRESS regulated public interest publisher. Read our editorial standards.
Ten thousand young people are to be offered work experience and placements in Britain's digital and tech sector, the government announced on 21 October 2026. Some of the country's biggest tech employers, among them Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Cognizant, AtkinsRéalis, Arm, Kainos and QinetiQ, have agreed to provide the opportunities over the next three years.
The announcement came with the publication of the Digital and Technologies Jobs Plan by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The plan sets a target of 20,000 entry level roles a year and asks employers across the sector to sign up to a new Skills Deal. Ministers say it responds to a problem they describe as generational, with nearly one million young people not in employment, education or training.
At a Glance
- Employers including Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Arm and QinetiQ have committed more than 10,000 work experience and placement opportunities over the next three years.
- The Digital and Technologies Jobs Plan sets a target of 20,000 entry level digital and tech jobs a year, created or filled by employers working with government.
- All secondary schools can now access the TechFirst programme, which aims to reach one million students by 2028, including 400,000 from the most disadvantaged schools.
- Skills England estimates that around 800,000 digital and tech roles will need filling by 2035 in sectors backed by the Industrial Strategy.
- Employers are being asked to make one measurable commitment to young people by 2030 and report publicly on progress each year.
Who is offering the 10,000 tech work placements?
The headline figure rests on pledges from the firms already signed up as partners to the Digital and Technologies Skills Deal. Current partners are Arm, Cisco, AtkinsRéalis, Cognizant, IBM, Kainos, Microsoft and QinetiQ. Between them they are opening what the government calls over 10,000 work experience and placement opportunities. The Jobs Plan describes this as the initial offer, and says employers will make further commitments through the Skills Deal.
Placements will be delivered through TechFirst, the government's flagship technology skills programme. The jobs plan says TechFirst is backed by up to £250 million, and that its youth strand alone has £24 million over three years, delivered through regional partners across the UK. Teachers who want their school involved are directed to a regional delivery partner, with separate contacts listed for each English region, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Other industry pledges sit alongside the 10,000. Tech She Can and Accenture plan an AI Roadshow aimed at more than 10,000 young people aged 14 to 24 across eight areas of the UK, running from February to July 2027. Aspiration Digital will run free careers events in seven locations, reaching around 4,000 young people in 2026/27. BCS will offer free professional recognition from April 2027 to every learner who completes a digital T Level, V Level or apprenticeship.
What is TechFirst? The tech programme now open to every secondary school
Alongside the placements, TechFirst is now available to all secondary schools. The government wants to reach one million students by 2028, a year earlier than originally planned, with 400,000 of them from the most disadvantaged schools.
Pupils can expect workshops, skills sessions, career talks, workplace experiences, tech clubs and inter school competitions. They will also get access to Ada Computer Science, a digital learning platform delivered with the Raspberry Pi Foundation. According to the government, Ada will be open to every student aged 11 to 18 and will cover everything from coding and AI to cyber security. From the end of the 2026/27 academic year it will replace the Isaac platform, which the Department for Education currently funds through the National Centre for Computing Education.
TechFirst also has a women's strand. Through the TechFirst Women's Programme, 300 women will receive mentoring, skills development and matching with live vacancies, with the aim of securing paid roles lasting at least six months by March 2027. Earlier this month the government opened registration for the first TechFirst Girls Competition, run with IBM.
What the Digital and Technologies Jobs Plan commits to
The Jobs Plan is built around four parts, which it calls Inspire, Open, Deliver and Sustain. Inspire covers the one million students. Open is about bringing work experience, T Level industry placements, apprenticeships, undergraduate routes and entry level jobs into a single Skills Deal, so that employers face one request rather than several. Deliver focuses on local partners, working with Mayoral Strategic Authorities, devolved governments and others to prepare young people, match them with employers and help firms design placements with clear tasks and supervision. Sustain covers digital and AI skills for the wider workforce, including an AI Skills Boost scheme that the plan says will help up to 10 million workers build practical AI skills by 2030.
The 20,000 figure is a yearly target, set with employers through the Skills Deal. The plan's ministerial foreword frames the longer ambition as around 200,000 genuine entry level jobs, including apprenticeships, over the next decade. The plan stresses that only entry level jobs, including apprenticeships, count towards that total. Work experience and placements are recorded separately, and the same opportunity should not be counted twice, including across different jobs plans.
The government's own notes add a caveat to the 20,000 target. It may involve some employers creating new positions, while others fill existing entry level vacancies they might not otherwise have prioritised.
Why entry level tech jobs have become harder to land
The plan's central argument is that the problem sits on the employer side as much as the education side. It cites government analysis with LinkedIn describing a contraction in entry level hiring, and says employers' expectations of experience create a barrier for new entrants. It calls itself, above all, a demand side plan.
Cyber security is used as the worked example. The share of job adverts open to candidates with less than a year of experience fell from 25% in 2022 to 16% in 2025, while 64% of adverts in 2025 asked for two to six years. Unemployment among cyber graduates reached 11% in the 2022/23 academic year, against 6% across all graduates.
The document is cautious about blaming artificial intelligence. It notes that some of the largest falls in entry level hiring are in roles where AI capabilities have grown, such as software engineering and data analysis, but says this is not yet evidence that AI is the cause. The government has set up an AI Economics Institute to study how AI is changing the labour market, and says its annual review of progress will reflect what the institute finds.
The plan also acknowledges gaps in who gets in. It says men outnumber women nearly four to one among students starting computing degrees, and puts women's share of the roles most relevant to the six frontier technologies at between 19% and 22%. Only around 9% of technology employees at employers surveyed by the Tech Talent Charter come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
What employers must commit to under the new Skills Deal
The ask is deliberately flexible. Every employer, public or private, should make an ambitious commitment by 2030, choosing from work experience, T Level industry placements, apprenticeships or entry level jobs. The pledge should fit the organisation's size and workforce plans, and each employer should then give a short public update every year. Government says it will publish delivery reporting covering encounters with employers, placements hosted, apprenticeships and entry level roles filled, and smaller firms supported.
To make hiring cheaper and less risky, the plan points to support that already exists. The government is investing an additional £2.5 billion by 2029 in the Youth Guarantee and the Growth and Skills Levy. The Youth Jobs Grant pays an employer £3,000 for hiring someone aged 18 to 24 who has been on Universal Credit and looking for work for six months or more. From August 2026, apprenticeship training in England for eligible under 25s is fully funded for all employers, and non-levy employers can claim up to £2,000 for new apprentices aged 16 to 24 starting from 1 October 2026.
Public contracts are another lever. Under changes announced in August 2026, the weighting given to local community benefit in social value scoring doubles from 10% to 20% for contracts worth £5 million or more. The plan says suppliers can meet those commitments through apprenticeships, T Level industry placements and work experience, including through TechFirst.
Jobs Plans for construction, defence and more, the wider youth employment push
The tech plan is one of several. The Professional and Business Services and Construction Jobs Plans were published on Monday, kicking off a week of Industrial Strategy Jobs Plans, with the Defence Jobs Plan due later this week. The government says the plans are being published ahead of the forthcoming Milburn Review into opportunities for young people.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has also called on employers to provide an additional 200,000 work experience placements so that every young person has exposure to a workplace between the ages of 14 and 16. Employers can pledge placements through their local Careers Hubs. The government adds that Great British Railways will open 600 foundation apprenticeships over four years for 16 to 21 year olds, in an industry where less than 7% of the workforce is under 25.
Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, said getting a good job in the digital and tech industry should not be determined by where someone lives or which school they attended, adding "Talent is everywhere. Opportunity is not." Mr Burnham said young people are told they need experience to get a job but are rarely given the chance to get that experience in the first place.
Key Takeaways
- Employers including Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Cognizant, AtkinsRéalis, Arm, Kainos and QinetiQ have committed more than 10,000 work experience and placement opportunities over three years.
- The Digital and Technologies Jobs Plan sets a target of 20,000 entry level roles a year, which the government says may include existing vacancies as well as new posts.
- TechFirst is now open to all secondary schools, with the aim of reaching one million students by 2028 and 400,000 from disadvantaged schools.
- The plan says entry level hiring has contracted, citing a fall in cyber security adverts open to candidates with under a year of experience from 25% in 2022 to 16% in 2025.
- Employers are asked to make a measurable commitment by 2030 through the Skills Deal and publish a short annual update, but the plan leaves regional and year by year breakdowns unpublished.