Uxbridge College, part of the Harrow, Richmond and Uxbridge Colleges (HRUC) consortium, has launched the Future Start youth employment hub, a joint venture with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) designed to help young people in Hillingdon move into work.
Two Job Coaches from local Job Centres are now permanently based on the college site, offering a one‑stop service for wellbeing, skills development and in‑work mentoring.
The hub was officially opened on Monday (14 September) by Andrew Western MP, Minister for Employment, who cut the ribbon alongside Danny Beales MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip and senior DWP representatives.
Future Start will provide HRUC students and other young people across the borough with employer‑sponsored personal development programmes, targeted training, job‑matching, recruitment support and ongoing mentorship. By embedding these services within an education provider, the hub aims to bridge the gap for the nearly one million young people currently not in education, employment or training.
The initiative aligns with the Youth Guarantee, which requires the Government to ensure that every young person has access to further learning and a clear pathway to an apprenticeship or job. As a key provider of skills, apprenticeships and broader learning opportunities, Uxbridge College offers an ideal location for an integrated employment hub that can deliver on this promise.
Speaking at the opening event, Mr Western MP said: “At the Future Start hub, it’s fantastic to see the integration between education, skills provision, and employment support, making support provisions accessible to people in one place. It can be intimidating if you don’t know what to do, who to reach out to, or even what sort of help it is that you need. So having it all here in one place in such a beautiful facility is really exciting.
“The Future Start hub here in Hillingdon and the 360 others that the government are going to create around the country are absolutely crucial to giving young people the connections, the confidence and the support they need to be able to get into education, employment or training. Here today I’ve met not just college staff, but local employers, people from the charitable sector, and other partners who are all pulling together along with DWP colleagues to be able to give young people the help they need.
“This partnership’s all about helping young people into work and looking at the barriers that they perhaps face to doing that. The youth hub exists to provide that one-stop shop support so that those barriers can be removed and whatever they want to do, their future’s not narrow, it’s as big and bright as anyone else’s.”
