How to personalise employment support: what can we learn from the Restart programme to support ‘Get Britain Working’?

17 Nov 2025

Jonathan Buzzeo, Senior Research Fellow

The importance of tailoring employment support to a jobseeker’s needs has long been recognised as a key element in its success. One challenge for providers is how this can be achieved for programmes with broad eligibility criteria, like Restart.

Through our research as part of the ReAct partnership, IES has looked at ways in which Restart employment advisers can effectively identify and meet the diverse needs of participants on the programme. This includes work with participants with caring responsibilities, with differing qualification levels, people who are neurodiverse or those seeking different types of employment (e.g. regular vs. self-employment). In drawing together examples of best practice from across the programme, our research identified common ways in which providers can personalise the support they deliver. From this, we can learn lessons for how employment services can be delivered in future within a changing system.

Adviser knowledge and expertise

An individual’s needs should be discussed as early as possible so that support can be appropriately tailored. However, the success of this is based on the knowledge and expertise of each adviser. To be able to offer effective support, advisers need to be aware of how a person’s circumstances may affect their job search, the type of roles they can take up as well as their working relationship with them. This could involve being familiar with how participants can sustain work and care responsibilities side by side; how those with higher level qualifications might need to adapt their job search to access professional roles; or exploring how an autistic participant prefers to communicate.

Our research found that this process can be supported by providing advisers with appropriate diagnostic tools to help surface this information early in their discussions with participants, while their awareness can be built by arranging presentations from specialists with experience of working with different groups.

Personalising employment support

Beyond 1-1 meetings between advisers and participants, our research identified other activities that can help make the support experience feel more tailored.

Peer learning opportunities
By hosting group workshops with participants that share similar circumstances, providers can offer participants opportunities to build connections with one another. This can be particularly valuable for those who experience social isolation, such as carers or those looking to become self-employed. Groups such as these can offer participants on-going emotional support and encouragement, help build their confidence, and create chances to share knowledge and practice job search skills.

Guest speakers
Providers can invite people with similar backgrounds to share their personal stories on how they navigated challenges and progressed into work. These success stories can show participants what’s possible and provide motivation and encouragement in their own search for employment, as well as help expand their professional networks.

Signposting to external sources of support
Effective signposting can allow participants to access external support groups, practical resources, financial advice and specialised employment support from other providers, charities and local government partners. In pointing participants towards external sources of support, it is important that advisers take account of whether people feel confident to make these connections on their own or if they may need some assistance. Close communication between advisers, partners and participants is also key in ensuring this support is complementary and does not duplicate what they have already received.

Looking forward

The above examples show that personalising employment support doesn’t always require more time 1-1 with an adviser. It can involve providers making the right tools available to staff, facilitating the creation of social networks between participants who share similar circumstances or interests, or signposting to external specialists and sources of support as needed. These approaches could prove valuable in the context of the government’s proposals to reform the employment support system. Under these proposals, employment advisers may have to perform a more complex role. As well as working directly with participants, it may be necessary for advisers to spend more of their time building relationships with partners in the health and skills system and local businesses to support integration. The approaches outlined in this article may help providers to think about ways they can continue to enhance the participant experience while managing these additional demands.