About us

Street League is the UK’s leading sport for employment charity. Our mission is to see an end to youth unemployment in the UK, and our award-winning programmes have supported 5,851 young people into work since 2010.

“It's great to see how Street League are using football to change the lives of young people and help them get jobs.”

Jose Mourinho, Manchester United Manager
 

The Need

Youth unemployment is still a massive problem in the UK. In the areas where we work, up to 1 in 4 16-24 year olds are unemployed, which is a huge cost to the taxpayer and society as well as the long-term consequences of unemployment on mental and physical wellbeing.

We think this is unacceptable, and our vision is to see an end to youth unemployment.
 

What we do

Street League operates in 14 regions across the UK with our sport for employment programmes running in 38 local communities. Our 10-12 week long programmes support unemployed 16-24 year olds to learn the key skills, gain the necessary qualifications and work experience to move into a sustainable job or further training.

“I was feeling demotivated and negative about future job opportunities, but taking part in Street League brought me back to life.”

Tom, 22, now working at Decathlon

We believe in the power of sport to enable people to achieve their full potential; sport is a universal language. Sport teaches teamwork, leadership, discipline, and communication – not only beneficial on the pitch or in the dance studio but also essential for the world of work.

We use football, as the nation's favourite game, to tackle one of the nation's biggest problems, and it really works. We’ve also introduced dance and fitness to broaden our social impact and diversity, and allowing our young people the freedom to express themselves in different ways.

“Getting the placement marked a turning point in my life. Now I'm ready for anything and everything, and excited about the future.”

Anthony, 24, now working at Hyundai
 

Our Impact

 

“In the expanding world of sport for employability Street league remains the market leader. With its sport plus integrated approach to personal development and its mentoring support during the early phases of employment it provides the necessary supportive and developmental framework to facilitate access to the labour market.”

Professor Fred Coalter, Leading Sport for Development Researcher.

We’re very proud of what we’ve achieved using the power of Sport. Here’s a selection of our impact statistics over the past 12 months, and for a *live* update on how we're doing month-on-month see our new impact dashboard.

• 1,553 young people into employment, education, and training, which is a 21% increase (1553/1281).
• 80% of participants are from the Top 40% most deprived areas of the UK (1919/2427).
• 72% of participants have at least one socio-economic barrier to employment (1751/2427).
• 65% of Academy participants progressed into employment, education or training (1235/1909), which is a 10% increase on the previous year.

Getting a job is one thing, but staying in it is our most important measure of success. Therefore, our focus is on ensuring the young people are supported to sustain their new job or training so it really has a life-changing impact.

• 59% of our young people sustained their employment outcome for six-months or longer (465/784), which is a 7% increase on the previous year.

We have been through a transformative journey over the past 7 years, with rapid growth in social impact whilst staying true to our values, principles and a strong financial ethos. 

We are very grateful to all of our partners who have helped us do this. We have close relationships with colleges and employers throughout the UK and are funded by local authorities and national governments mostly on a payment-by-results basis. We also receive donations from private sector businesses who share our concern about the damage that unemployment can have on young people’s life chances.

Our vision for the future is to see an end to youth unemployment in the UK, helping even more young people across the UK get a job through the power of sport.
 

Transparency

We are committed to transparency in the monitoring and evaluation of our social impact and finances. We’ve have been fortunate enough to work with two of the UK’s leading Venture Philanthropy organisations, Impetus-PEF and Inspiring Scotland, over the past seven years who have pushed us hard to develop transparent impact measurement.
 

Our Values

 

Equality and Diversity

Street League has an absolute commitment to diversity and equality - it is at the core of our charitable purpose and how we want to operate. This means that we recognise and value diversity whilst proactively seeking to tackle inequality and disadvantage As an organisation supporting young people and as an employer, Street League aims to be empowering, supportive and to offer as much flexibility as possible to in order to help each individual realise their full potential as participants, volunteers or employees of Street League. We believe that this approach is key and central to promoting and developing equality and diversity.

Street League will not discriminate because of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race (which includes colour, nationality and ethnic or national origins), religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. It will not discriminate because of any other irrelevant factor and will build a culture that values meritocracy, openness, fairness and transparency.

Our commitment is firmly founded on our belief that to offer services that are personal and adaptable we need a diverse staff team who can respond to young people as individuals. We also want to attract, keep and motivate the most talented staff, so we need to reach out to all sections of the community and provide a working environment in which everyone feels valued, respected and able to contribute.
 

Awards and Accreditations