Street League is the UK’s leading sport for employment charity. At Street League you play sport everyday and learn the key skills to move into work.

“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

Youth unemployment is still a massive problem in the UK. More than 1 in 7 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. See more detail on the need for Street League.

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

Street League operates in 14 regions across the UK with our sport for employment programmes running in 36 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. See Where We Work.

“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.

We believe that school is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and that you can find your own success in many different ways. Sport teaches teamwork, leadership, discipline and competitive spirit – 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-fit to broaden our social impact and diversity, and allowing our young people the freedom to express themselves.

“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

We’re very proud of what we’ve achieved using the power of Sport over the past year. Here’s a selection of our impact over the past 12 months:

  • With your support, we’ve helped thousands of young people into jobs, training and education and our impact is growing 30-40% year on year.
  • 81% of participants are from the Top 40% most deprived areas of the UK (1760/2177).
  • 75% of our participants face at least one socio-economic barrier to employment (1257/1685)
  • 84% (1421/1685) of our participants have no qualifications higher than G.C.S.E level or equivalent.
  • 18% have no formal qualifications at all (301/1685).
  • Getting a job is one thing, but staying in it is our most important measure of sucess. 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.
  • 55% of our young people sustained their employment outcome for 6 months or longer (387/710).

We have been through a transformative journey over the past 6 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.

Our values

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