We recognise that boosting social mobility isn’t just about our own internal business practices, but how we support our local communities too. As part of our New World. New Skills community programme, we work with school students from lower socio-economic backgrounds and other disadvantaged groups (such as refugees) to:
equip them with the skills to help them fulfil their potential and achieve positive employment outcomes in their career of choice, whether at PwC or elsewhere;
remove barriers to access, linking our outreach programme to our recruitment opportunities;
reach the most disadvantaged areas and groups according to national data, including local authority cold spots; and
share our people's expertise through volunteering opportunities.
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Supporting schools
Our Social Mobility Schools programme is aimed at schools across the UK with a higher than average proportion of students eligible for free school meals and/or located in a social mobility cold spot (England only) or areas of deprivation.
Supporting other groups
We’re committed to supporting other disadvantaged groups, such as refugees, through our employability skills programmes and mental health first aid training.
Supporting schools
Our Social Mobility Schools programme offers school students an opportunity to develop their confidence and key employability skills through face to face and virtual activities. Having a blended approach allows us to increase our impact, both in terms of the number of students we engage with and our geographical reach. We know in person engagement and office visits are generally considered more impactful in providing opportunities and inspiring students, particularly for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
We have mapped our activities against the Gatsby Benchmarks and the Skills Builder framework, where appropriate.
- School series
- Virtual school series: Dragon's Den
- Virtual school series: Essential skills
- Work experience
- Employability Skills Toolkit
- Primary schools engagement
- Supporting students with SEND
- Mentoring
- One Firm One Day
- Work with partner organisations
School series
Our Schools Series events offer secondary school students the opportunity to connect with us and develop their confidence and essential skills through an in person office visit. We run this twice during the academic year: in Autumn for Years 10-13 (and equivalent in NI and Scotland) and in Spring for Years 7-9 (and equivalent in NI and Scotland). These events are exclusively available to schools that meet our social mobility criteria.
For the academic year 2024/2025, we have events running in October and November 2024. If you would like to sign up, please get in touch.
Virtual school series: Dragon's Den
This programme provides an opportunity for secondary school students of any age to try out their entrepreneurial skills. Throughout the eight sessions, students are presented with a problem and encouraged to develop ideas to solve it, before presenting their pitch to their teacher and classmates.
This programme has been mapped to the Skills Builder framework and will support your students in developing their teamwork, creativity, problem solving and speaking skills. For schools in England, this programme will support you in meeting seven out of eight Gatsby Benchmarks.
All the learning materials to deliver this programme can be found on our Virtual school series: Dragon's Den page. Take a look at the Teacher Guide for detailed information to support you in running these sessions
Virtual school series: Essential skills
This programme provides secondary school students of any age an early insight into entrepreneurship with hands-on activities, whilst developing their confidence and key employability skills.
This programme has been mapped to the Skills Builder framework and will support your students in developing their teamwork, creativity, problem solving and speaking skills. For schools in England, this programme will support you in meeting seven out of eight Gatsby Benchmarks.
All the learning materials to deliver this programme can be found below. Make sure you choose the right programme for your class. They are clearly labelled for students aged 11-14 and 14-18. Take a look at the Teacher Guide for detailed information to support you in running these sessions.
All the materials you need to deliver each programme can be accessed from our Virtual school series: Essential skills page, including a detailed teacher guide.
Work experience
Taking place annually in August, this is a paid 5 day work experience programme, entirely ring fenced for Year 12 (and equivalent) students who meet our social mobility criteria. We recruit these students through our relationships with partner organisations, we can not accept any individual applications via our website.
The week gives the students a chance to experience the workplace, learn about different areas of PwC, develop their essential skills and also participate in a group project throughout the week. We pay the students a salary, cover the cost of travel and provide them with lunch and a PwC laptop for the week.
Employability Skills Toolkit
Our online toolkit has been created for teachers and careers professionals to support their students with developing key skills in preparation for their careers, whether at PwC or elsewhere. It contains a wide selection of lessons, suitable for students aged 13-18, that can be easily accessed online. Topics include technology, financial literacy and wellbeing as well as access to resources such as our Employability Hub. All sessions have easy-to-follow lesson plans, presentations and engaging activities.
Primary schools engagement
We’re currently developing our offer for primary schools. In its pilot phase, we’ll be delivering Insight Days in our offices to children in Years 5&6 and designing a primary version of our Employability Skills Toolkit.
More information will be added here as the programme develops. If you’d be interested in working with us, please get in touch.
Supporting students with SEND
We’re currently working on what our support for young people with SEND looks like. In its pilot phase, we’ll be working with schools to design appropriate activities for their students.
More information will be added here as the programme develops. If you’d be interested in working with us, please get in touch.
Mentoring
We work with a number of partner organisations to deliver mentoring programmes to young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds, including UpReach and National Literacy Trust. Our partnerships are reviewed regularly.
One Firm One Day
Doing the right thing for our communities is a key part of our firm’s strategy and ‘One Firm One Day’ (OFOD) has become our flagship, firm-wide annual volunteering event with excellent feedback from those who have taken part in previous years. You can read more about OFOD.
As part of PwC’s One Firm One Day 2024, the Social Mobility Team created 4 skill sessions - Financial Literacy, Teamwork, Data Science & Analytics and The rise of AI - delivered by PwC volunteers at schools across the UK, focused on building the essential skills of students. We also invited 6 school groups to spend a day in our offices, taking part in a business challenge and developing their employability skills.
The next date for OFOD is May 2025 and we’ll update this page with a sign up form nearer the time. If you are interested in this programme, please get in touch.
Work with partner organisations
In addition to our mentoring partnerships, we work with a number of charity partners and third parties to help young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds develop skills and be successful in their career of choice. Partner organisations we work with include the Sutton Trust, the Social Mobility Foundation and UpReach and these partnerships are managed together in a collaborative way by our social mobility and student recruitment teams.
Supporting other groups
Through our programme, we work with partner organisations such as refugee charities and local councils to deliver employability skills programmes. These are designed to equip participants with key skills, insight and boost their confidence through activities such as professional communication courses and interview workshops.
At PwC, we work hard to support the positive mental health of our people, clients and our wider society. As part of our commitment as a cornerstone employer in Bradford, we provide free Mental Health First Aider (MHFA) training to workers across the city who work with young people.
- Refugee Employability Programme
- Mental Health First Aid training
Refugee Employability Programme
This programme is designed to provide refugees and asylum seekers across the UK with the skills and insight to support them in the UK labour market.
We hold relationships with several external organisations to deliver this programme including: UK Refugee Council, Welsh Refugee Council, Refuaid and Code Your Future.
Our employability skills programme includes:
Employability skills sessions including CV workshops, interview practice and communication workshops.
1:1 mentoring sessions with PwC mentors
Mental Health First Aid training
Run by our firm’s dedicated MHFA instructor, Sean Maywood (a former teacher who’s delivered over 100 courses firmwide at PwC and across England), this free Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training is designed to equip participants with the skills and resources to help someone who might be struggling.
If you work with young people, are based in Bradford and interested in upcoming courses, please get in touch.
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