£3,000 to hire, £2,000 for an apprentice: the 2026 youth employment package explained

On 16 March 2026 the government announced a £1 billion employment package aimed squarely at young people. There are three parts to it. Two pay employers to hire, and one guarantees young people a route into work.

If you are 18 to 24 and looking for work

The Jobs Guarantee has been widened. It previously covered 18 to 21 year olds and now runs to 24, creating more than 35,000 extra subsidised positions.

Separately, employers now have a direct financial reason to take you on. That changes the conversation when you apply, and it is worth knowing about when you do.

The scale of the problem behind all this is not small. Close to one million young people in the UK are not earning or learning, a figure that rose by 248,000 between 2021 and 2024. If you are in that group, you are not unusual and there is more support available this year than last.

If you are an employer

The Youth Jobs Grant pays a business £3,000 for hiring an 18 to 24 year old who has been on Universal Credit for six months or more. It is expected to support 60,000 young people over three years.

The apprenticeship hiring payment gives small and medium sized employers £2,000 for taking on an apprentice aged 16 to 24, with a target of 50,000 new apprenticeships.

Read those two alongside the Budget change that made apprenticeship training fully funded for under 25s at SMEs, and the position for a smaller employer is unusually good. The training is funded, and there is a payment for hiring on top of it.

The honest caveat

A hiring payment is not a reason to create a job you do not need. It is a good reason to bring forward a hire you were already planning, or to take a chance on someone you would otherwise have passed over because they needed more training than the alternative candidate.

That second one is where these schemes actually earn their money, and it is where we see employers do best. Someone who needed a break and got one tends to stay.

If you want to talk through hiring an apprentice, see our current vacancies or call 01254 679998.

Sources

GOV.UK, major employment drive for the next generation
House of Commons Library, Youth Guarantee