Jobs Foundation Across Party Conferences

Jobs Foundation at Party Conferences 2026

Conference season is always one of the best opportunities we have to take the Jobs Foundation’s work directly to the people shaping policy, and this year our team spent time at the Labour, Conservative and Reform UK conferences, meeting MPs, policymakers and businesses to talk about how we get Britain working.

Labour Party Conference

We travelled back to Liverpool, where we spent the week meeting MPs, policymakers and businesses of every size and sector to discuss how Britain can create more good jobs and get the economy growing again. On the Monday evening, our CEO Georgiana spoke at the SME4Labour business reception, chaired by Cllr Ibrahim Dogus, alongside Hamish Falconer MP and Zubir Ahmed MP, in a conversation about how government and employers can work together to help small and medium-sized businesses grow.

Our Communications Director Jamie Booth then helped open the final day of conference at a joint roundtable hosted by Be the Business and St Martin’s Group, titled “Creating Opportunities for Young People: Aligning Business and Policy”. Alongside Antonia Bance MP and Bassam Mahfouz AM, the discussion explored how employers and government can work more closely together on youth employment and re-industrialisation, and on bringing down the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). 

Jamie highlighted one of the key conclusions of our Jobs and Education: Building the Bridge to Opportunity report, that businesses and schools need to work far more closely together to provide careers education and work experience, given our finding that this reduces a young person's likelihood of becoming NEET by 20 per cent. 

Conservative Party Conference

On the Sunday, our Research Project Manager Catherine Frost joined a roundtable on devolution hosted by Marcus Jones of the East Midlands Enterprise Foundation, which explored how devolution can help build networks and support businesses in the regions and nations of the UK. Marcus made a strong case for shaping devolution around the needs of business, so that it supports regional growth and does nothing to hold firms back, and we are delighted that he will be joining us as Chair of our East Midlands Business Council.

On the Monday, our President Matthew Elliott spoke at the Centre for Policy Studies Breaking Down Barriers to Growth event, where he set out why growth is essential to creating jobs and getting Britain working. On the Tuesday, Georgiana joined a CPS panel on small businesses, highlighting their importance to the economy and the pressures that are currently putting people off taking the risk of starting one.

Two issues came up again and again across the conference. The first was the cost of energy, which continues to squeeze household budgets and limit employers' capacity to invest and recruit. The second was the NEETs crisis, with growing concern about the number of young people out of work and out of education. Both sit at the heart of our mission to reduce worklessness and help hard-to-reach groups into meaningful work, and it was clear from the discussions that they remain high on the political agenda.

Reform UK Conference

At Reform UK’s conference, our Policy Analyst Bertie Hawkins spoke on a panel about how to help more people move from welfare into work. As Bertie put it, the end of that journey is a job, and most jobs are provided by businesses. Daniel Herring of the Centre for Policy Studies set out how much more expensive it has become to employ someone over the past two years, and it was encouraging to hear Tom Montgomery MS outline how Reform would look to bring those costs down. Bertie also met members of Reform’s policy team to make the case for business as a force for good, and for our proposal to cut employer National Insurance for under-25s as a practical way of lowering the cost of taking on young people.

Looking ahead

Across all three conferences, the conversations reinforced how central employers are to any serious plan for getting Britain working. With the Budget on 28 October and the launch of the Jobs Foundation Pledge at the House of Lords on 9 November, we look forward to carrying these conversations forward in the weeks ahead.