The Department keeps Jobcentre staffing requirements under regular review. Resource demand is regularly assessed using a range of operational measures, including claimant volumes and caseloads, and recruitment plans are reviewed accordingly.

The Department does not use parliamentary constituency boundaries as the basis for workforce planning. Recruitment decisions are made according to operational demand and service requirements across Jobcentres. This includes Jobcentre Plus offices serving the Leicester area, where staffing levels and workforce requirements will continue to be monitored and reviewed to ensure customers receive the support they need.

The government is investing an additional £2.5 billion by 2029 into the Youth Guarantee and the Growth and Skills Levy, supporting almost one million young people and creating up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn. This investment will also create around 300,000 more opportunities to gain workplace experience and training. It will also help unlock up to 200,000 more employment opportunities, through a new £3,000 Youth Jobs Grant for employers hiring 18–24-year-olds who have been on Universal Credit for over six months, a new £2,000 apprenticeship hiring payment for non-levy employers hiring 16–24-year-olds and the Jobs Guarantee scheme, providing long-term unemployed 18–24-year-olds with a fully funded six month job.

Between Q2 2024 and Q1 2026, Jobcentre Plus sites in Leicester East and across Leicestershire have delivered the previous DWP Youth Offer which provided tailored work coach support to 16- to 24-year-olds on UC in Great Britain.  The Youth Guarantee has been rolled out across all Jobcentres since Q1 2026 and we are ensuring a clear pathway into the new Youth Guarantee by reforming the existing DWP Youth Offer, ensuring all young people can access support. This includes increasing work coach time with young people, to provide more personalised employment support and improving connections to national provision, and opportunities to earn or learn.

Young people now receive tailored guidance and offered up to six options (such as: work, work experience, Sector-based Work Academy Programme (SWAP), apprenticeship, training or learning) to help them progress into employment. This support includes access to specialist work coaches – Youth Employability Coaches - to help address complex barriers to work and the partnership led Youth Hub network.

There are currently 3 Youth Employability Coaches in Leicester City and 5 in Leicestershire. This number is constantly reviewed as numbers of customers requiring the extra support offered by Youth Employability Coaches change.

Work Experience is widely offered across both the City and County with a wide range of employers across a number of sectors offering opportunities.

The Youth Hubs expansion will increase coverage to more than 360 locations across Great Britain, combining employment help from Jobcentre work coaches with local services for health, housing, and wellbeing. Currently, in Leicester, there is a Youth Hub at Leicester City Youth Hub - King Power Stadium, which is in the Leicester West constituency but can be accessible for constituents in Leicester East within an hour.

This government recognises that a fundamental change in how employment support is designed and delivered is required to help more people to find, stay and progress in work, including those not receiving benefits.

The core Jobcentre Plus offer is primarily designed to support individuals who are expected to be searching or preparing for work as part of their benefit-related conditions, providing Work Coach support and helping claimants prepare for, find and move into work or better work. Beyond the core offer, Jobcentre services can vary locally, with service leaders having flexibility to extend additional support where resources allow and where this reflects local labour market needs.

In addition, the expansion of Youth Hubs to more than 360 locations across Great Britain will ensure that every young person aged 16 – 24 years old- including those not receiving benefits - can access opportunities and comprehensive support in their local area. A core service blueprint will guarantee high-quality, holistic support, including mental health, housing, essential and vocational skills, and employer engagement at every Youth Hub.

As part of our Jobs and Careers Service, we have launched digital tools, known as the Work Hub, designed to help everyone access online support, including an online AI work assistant, CV builder and a new job search tool. We are also expanding community-based employment and careers support through Jobcentre vans and delivering employment support in libraries, GP surgeries and local authority buildings, which are accessible to everyone.

The claimant commitment pathfinder is being developed using direct insight from Universal Credit claimants and work coaches. Through structured user research activity and ongoing feedback, we are assessing how the new approach operates in practice and whether it provides a clearer and improved experience from both a user and operational perspective.

This engagement forms part of wider improvements to conditionality and claimant communication set out in the Government’s response to Recommendation 4. We are committed to publishing evaluation findings in line with Government Social Research processes.

The Answer of 20 October to Question 78358 did include the 1,000 redeployed Pathways to Work advisers.

All staff new to DWP complete learning on Domestic Abuse as part of their induction.

Work Coaches then complete role specific learning which includes further learning on domestic abuse which will build their knowledge to develop the relevant skills to help all customers, by tailoring their support to their individual needs. All learning is delivered by DWP staff.

In total 27,714 work coach staff have completed domestic abuse learning over the last five years. Please note that the number of trained staff may include individuals who have since moved roles or left the organisation.

The department recognises that epilepsy is a serious neurological condition, which can greatly affect an individual’s ability to work and live well.

Disability Employment Advisers are trained work coaches , followed by additional role specific learning designed to support their role. This learning enables Disability Employment Advisers to treat each claimant as an individual, understand the impact of different disabilities and health conditions, and provide tailored support to help overcome barriers to employment.

Disabled people and people with health conditions are a diverse group so access to the right work and support, in the right place, at the right time, is key. We therefore have a range of specialist support to help individuals to stay in work and get back into work, including those that join up employment and health systems. Disability Employment Advisers work with the local community to advocate for customers, collaborate with local partners such as employers, voluntary organisations, the NHS and local government services to facilitate support that meets local needs and promote other programmes such as Disability Confident and Work Well.

For those with health conditions and disabled people that would benefit from more intensive support, Jobcentre staff can signpost people to Connect to Work, our local-area led support in England and Wales. This started to go live in April 2025 and we expect it to be live in all areas of England and Wales by early 2026. In Connect to Work, participants are given a dedicated specialist employment support adviser who works alongside them to understand their career goals and help them to address any specific barriers to employment. Participants are supported to have conversations with prospective employers, helping to remove the need to go through complex application processes. The employment adviser works with both the employer and the participant to ensure that the transition into work is smooth and that the workplace is inclusive.

We are building towards a guaranteed offer of personalised work, health and skills support for all disabled people and those with health conditions on out of work benefits. We are already making progress, and there are now over 1000 Pathways to Work Advisors in Jobcentres across England, Scotland and Wales who are helping disabled people and people with health conditions towards and into work.

And through the new Jobs and Careers Service, the department will enhance support so that customers can access the help they need at the right time.

The Department has issued no such guidance.

The requested work coach data for England has been provided at district level. Pure English regional data is unavailable as some English regions are combined with Scotland and Wales for Universal Credit administration purposes.

Information on numbers of Universal Credit claimants by region can be obtained from DWP’s Stat Xplore tool Stat XPlore

Population estimates are published by the Office for National Statistics and can be found at Population estimates - Office for National Statistics

Notes:

• Work Coach Full Time Equivalent (FTE) data supplied is from September 2025.
• The number of Work Coaches has been derived from DWP's Activity Based Model (ABM). This model gives an estimated FTE based on a point in time estimate by Line Managers, as recorded on our internal systems each month.
• Figures have been rounded to the nearest 10 FTE.
• The number of Work Coaches refers to staff involved in conducting regular engagement with claimants, hence the data does not include Work Coach Team Leaders or Disability Employment Advisers.
• Work coaches include both UC Full-Service Work Coaches and Existing Benefits Work Coaches.
• The number of staff employed is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard.

Parents claiming Universal Credit have support from Work Coaches, who provide individual, tailored help to all customers across the country. This includes supporting the development of skills needed to look for and obtain sustained employment, advice to parents on childcare support and funding through Flexible Support Fund to remove immediate barriers to employment.

We are also considering how we can improve our employment support to parents as part of our Child Poverty Strategy.

The table below shows the monthly number of full-time equivalent Work Coaches working in Jobcentres since July 2024:

Notes:

• Work Coach Full Time Equivalent (FTE) data supplied is from July 24 to April 25. This is the most up to date Data held.
• The number of Work Coaches has been derived from DWP's Activity Based Model (ABM). This model gives an estimated FTE based on a point in time estimate by Line Managers, as recorded on our internal systems each month.
• Figures have been rounded to the nearest 10 FTE.
• The number of Work Coaches refers to staff involved in conducting regular engagement with claimants, hence the data does not include Work Coach Team Leaders or Disability Employment Advisers.
• Work coaches include both UC Full-Service Work Coaches and Existing Benefits Work Coaches.
• The number of staff employed is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard.

We do not measure performance at individual work coach level; performance is measured at jobcentre level. Regular performance discussions are held to review and manage jobcentre performance. DWP currently manages jobcentre performance through a comprehensive framework that includes key performance indicators, performance discussions, and various support mechanisms. Each jobcentre, district, group and area will have it's own performance discussions, supported by performance leaders who provide analytical support and insight relevant to their area.

As set out in the Get Britain Working White Paper, we are reforming Jobcentre Plus and creating a new service across Great Britain that will enable everyone to access support to find good, meaningful work, and support to help them to progress in work. In England, these reforms will include bringing together Jobcentre Plus with the National Careers Service to create a greater awareness and focus on skills and careers as well as better join-up between employability and careers provision.

Our new service will move away from the current one size fits all approach, recognising people are individuals with different support needs and will provide better tailored support. Providing high-quality personalised support that helps people get into work, support training, and get on at work is a central tenet to the new service.

We will provide an update on our plans to Get Britain Working and the steps we are taking in due course.

The table below shows the monthly number of full time equivalent work coaches working in Jobcentres since July 2024:

Notes:

• The number of staff employed is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. As the Department holds the information, we have released it in this PQ to answer the question asked.
• Work Coach Full Time Equivalent (FTE) data supplied is from July 24 to March 25. This is the most up to date Data held.
• The number of Work Coaches has been derived from DWP's Activity Based Model (ABM). This model gives an estimated FTE based on a point in time estimate by Line Managers, as recorded on our internal systems each month.
• Figures have been rounded to the nearest 10 FTE.
• The number of Work Coaches refers to staff involved in conducting regular engagement with claimants, hence the data does not include Work Coach Team Leaders or Disability Employment Advisers.
• Work coaches include both UC Full-Service Work Coaches and Existing Benefits Work Coaches.

We currently provide assistance and support through a variety of channels, including face to face in all of our jobcentres across the United Kingdom.

We have a dedicated team in place to support customers in receipt of a Migration Notice to transition to Universal Credit including a dedicated telephone line for queries.

We continue to learn what we need to put in place for customers receiving a Migration Notice to support their transition to Universal Credit.

We currently provide assistance and support through a variety of channels, including face to face in all of our jobcentres across the United Kingdom.

We have a dedicated team in place to support customers in receipt of a Migration Notice to transition to Universal Credit including a dedicated telephone line for queries.

We continue to learn what we need to put in place for customers receiving a Migration Notice to support their transition to Universal Credit.

There are currently over 770 Disability Employment Advisers in the UK. Disability Employment Adviser resource is allocated at district level and covers every Jobcentre in England, Scotland and Wales. We are ensuring that every Work Coach in every Jobcentre continues to have access to a Disability Employment Adviser.