Why practical skills, wellbeing and supported routes into work matter

By Zoe Portlock, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Bikeworks

The report names the problem. The next question is what works.

Alan Milburn’s Young People and Work interim report sets out the scale of the challenge facing young people who are not in education, employment or training, and identifies the issues that now need serious attention.

Nearly one million young people in the UK are NEET. The report also challenges the idea that this is about young people lacking aspiration. In the survey carried out for the review, 84% of NEET young people said they wanted to find a job, education or training.

The issue is more complex, and more serious. More than six in ten NEET young people have never had a job. Health, disability and mental health are now central to the picture, with 44% of NEET young people reporting a work-limiting health condition in 2025. The report also names warning signs that too often go unaddressed, including SEND, persistent absence, low attainment, challenges at home, poor mental health and weak exposure to work.

The issue is not whether young people want to work. It is whether they can access the right support, practical experience and paid opportunities to move into work and progress.

This has been part of my work for more than 20 years

Before Bikeworks, my work at Tower Project included setting up an employment service for people facing significant barriers to work. That experience shaped the thinking that followed. It showed that employment support alone was not enough.

The Neighbourhood Renewal Fund was part of that story. In Tower Hamlets, it funded the setting up of the Job Enterprise and Training service for Disabled people, based on a clear case made to the local authority about need, exclusion and the importance of specialist employment support. That mattered because the funding reached the right place: a local response shaped around people being excluded from work.

What was still missing were enough supported workplace environments where people could build practical skills, experience paid work, develop routine and confidence, and move towards longer-term employment.

My research confirmed what the employment service had already shown in practice: people needed access to paid work in a supported workplace, with training, supervision and progression built in. That thinking shaped Bikeworks.

Bikeworks was created as a practical solution

Tackling unemployment and exclusion was part of the original concept for setting up Bikeworks. From the experience at Tower Project, it was clear that advice, encouragement and job-search support had a place, but they did not create enough routes into paid work.

What was missing were supported workplace environments where practical skills, routine, confidence and paid employment could be built together.

Bikeworks was built as an entrepreneurial solution to that institutional problem: creating a bridge between long-term unemployment and sustained work, using cycling as the route into skills, employment and opportunity.

That mattered in East London. When Bikeworks was created in 2006, the Olympic and Paralympic Games were bringing growth, investment and change. The question for us was whether local people already excluded from employment would be able to access the jobs, skills and economic opportunities being created around them.

Even during periods of relatively high employment, people can still be locked out of opportunity because standard routes into work often assume networks, confidence, health, stability, qualifications and support that are not equally available.

We know what works when investment reaches the right place

By 2011, Bikeworks had developed a model that could be grown. Barclays’ involvement in Cycle into Work showed what became possible when investment backed the whole route, not just the training.

The programme connected cycle mechanics with workplace skills, employer links and progression into the cycling industry. It gave people access to practical learning, a real sector and a supported route towards paid work.

Years later, during Covid, Kickstart showed the same principle again. It was created in response to the risk of rising youth unemployment and funded paid six-month work placements for young people.

At Bikeworks, those placements worked because they were not treated as work experience on the margins. Young people came into real roles, with support around them, and we retained and employed those who came through our doors. Many other organisations saw similar success.

That is the point. When investment pays for the conditions that make progression possible — practical work, supervision, support, employer links and time — young people can move into paid work and build from there.

Cycle mechanics is one route into skills, confidence and work

Cycle mechanics matters in this argument because it shows what practical skills can do when they are part of a supported route into work. It is not only about learning a trade. It is about creating the conditions for young people to build confidence, develop workplace behaviours, understand a real sector and move towards paid employment.

For some young people, cycle mechanics can lead directly into work: workshop roles, e-bike maintenance, adapted cycle servicing, Dr Bike, fleet maintenance, cycle hire, community cycling and active travel. These are real jobs connected to healthier, more sustainable places.

For others, the value is in the transferable skills built through the process: following instructions, solving problems, communicating clearly, working with others, developing patience, completing tasks and seeing progress. These are skills needed in any workplace.

This is also where wellbeing and employment connect. Confidence is not built by telling a young person to be more confident. It is built through experience, responsibility, support and the chance to succeed at something real.

That is why practical skills should be part of the response to youth unemployment and economic inactivity. They can create a different starting point: one based on capability, trust and progression.

The problem is not knowing what to do. It is how this work is funded.

Over the past 20 years, funding has changed significantly. Programmes such as the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, New Deal for Communities and the Working Neighbourhoods Fund were not perfect, but they allowed local need to be understood and acted on. They gave councils, local partnerships and community-rooted organisations the ability to build practical responses to unemployment and exclusion.

That mattered because this work takes time. Supporting people into employment is not always a straight line. It requires trust, practical skills, supervision, confidence-building, employer links and progression routes that can respond to people’s lives as they are.

At the point when Bikeworks wanted to grow its supported employment model, funding was already moving in a different direction. Larger contracts, apprenticeships, levy arrangements, further education routes and payment-by-results models became harder for smaller providers to access or carry.

Payment-by-results caused real damage to smaller organisations working with people with complex lives and higher support needs. It expected providers to carry the cost of delivery upfront, absorb the financial risk if outcomes took longer, and still achieve results with very limited resource.

That model favoured scale, cashflow and lower-risk participants. It rewarded quicker outcomes and made it harder to support people whose route into work needed more time, more trust and more specialist support.

The consequence was that people furthest from employment were pushed further to the side, while organisations with the skills, relationships and experience to support them found it harder to access the funding needed to do the work properly.

The training centres are still here

Bikeworks still has two cycle mechanics training centres. These spaces are not just about tools, workstands and technical training. They create the conditions for confidence to build: routine, trusted relationships, a sense of belonging, practical skills and progression.

We have the tutors, knowledge and experience to connect young people into cycle mechanics, e-bike maintenance, adapted cycle servicing and fleet maintenance.

These spaces used to be full each week with funded programmes for young people. Today, without the same funding routes, they are more often used for paid public training.

Bikeworks has not lost the ability to deliver. What has weakened is the availability of funding that allowed young people to access this kind of training, support and relationship-based learning.

As Bikeworks came through Covid, we tried to reopen those routes. We explored the Flexible Support Fund, rewrote applications, responded to requirements and put significant resource into trying to rebuild the model we knew could work. But even with the evidence behind us, it did not translate into a viable funding opportunity.

For an organisation like ours, that meant scarce resource was pulled into navigating funding systems rather than opening the doors of our training centres to young people who would have benefited.

The next response needs to be shaped with those who know how this work happens

The Milburn report should make us stop and think. If young people are becoming detached from employment, education, health and work experience, the answer cannot sit in one part of the system.

It also cannot be designed only around national targets, large contracts or simplified assumptions about young people’s readiness for work.

The next response needs to invest in trusted, local routes that connect wellbeing, skills and employment. It needs to fund the time it takes to build trust, not just the qualification. It needs to value community-rooted providers, not only large contracts. It needs to recognise that practical skills development can also be wellbeing work.

Bikeworks was created in that space. Twenty years on, the need has not gone away. If anything, the report shows that the need for practical, supported routes into work has become more urgent.

As the next stage of policy, funding and investment is shaped, those designing it need to draw on the experience of organisations that have built supported routes into work before. That means speaking to organisations that know how to support young people to move from exclusion into confidence, skills, paid work and progression.

Come and talk to us, and others like us. We do not need to reinvent the wheel.

By Zoe Portlock, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Bikeworks

Twenty-five years ago, I began my career at a charity supporting people with learning disabilities and their families. I saw firsthand the exclusion faced across every part of life – from education and employment to sport, leisure, and community participation.

Decades later, the story is far too similar. Today, people with learning disabilities remain among the most excluded in society – more likely to experience loneliness, less likely to be in work, and more at risk of poor physical and mental health.

Driven by purpose, in response I established a supported employment and training service that still operates today, and went on to develop two social enterprises – one providing employment through fleet vehicle valeting, and the other, Bikeworks, using cycles as tools for inclusion, wellbeing, and connection.

But despite this – and the determined efforts of many across the years – people with learning disabilities continue to face persistent and systemic exclusion. The data lays bare just how entrenched the inequality remains:

• Just 5.1% of adults with a learning disability known to social care are in paid employment (NHS Digital, 2023).
• People with learning disabilities are twice as likely to be physically inactive compared to the general population (Sport England, 2020).

Why is this still acceptable?

At Bikeworks, we know what works. Our All Ability Clubs and events, and inclusive maintenance training, provide access to physical activity, independence, and confidence building. But this is still seen as niche – something unique, rather than the norm. For real change to happen, we need to scale inclusion, and that requires political will, sustained investment, and better data.

Here’s what needs to happen:

• Better recording of learning disability data across physical activity and health settings, so we understand participation – or lack of it – and respond accordingly.
• Targeted investment into inclusive cycling infrastructure and programmes, building on proven models that enable access and confidence.
• A national employment strategy that includes social enterprise and supported employment models – recognising the skills, talents, and aspirations of people with learning disabilities.
• A policy framework that treats inclusion not as a bolt-on, but as a baseline — embedded across sport, education, work, and community life.

This Learning Disability Week, we stand proudly with our east London neighbours at Bridget’s Café — run by ASL, a social enterprise championing employment and visibility.

Every week, the team rides with us at our All Ability Club. Every day, they show what’s possible when opportunity meets equity.

          

Let’s not just celebrate inclusion.

Let’s fund it, legislate for it, and embed it into our systems.

Because people with learning disabilities are not the problem.

The structures that exclude them are.

And those can, and must — change.

Footnote:

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Bikeworks has seen a marked increase in participation across our All Ability Club programme. At Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, attendance more than doubled in the past year alone — a rise of over 100%. Despite this visible and growing demand, we continue to fight for consistent revenue investment. This increase is not simply about popularity — it highlights a deeper issue: the continued absence of inclusive, community-level physical activity offers that meet the needs of disabled people and those with learning disabilities.