The missing bridge between work and jobseekers: Kieran John Fitzpatrick
Ask any business owner in Leeds, or indeed across Yorkshire, what keeps them up at night and, sooner or later, the conversation will turn to people.
Finding them, keeping them, developing them. The hospitality and coffee sector is no different. Staff turnover remains high after Brexit and the impact of the COVID pandemic; skilled candidates are hard to find; and the pipeline of motivated, work-ready talent that every employer says is hard to find, isn’t materialising through the usual channels.
I lead Well Grounded’s Leeds Academy, a social enterprise that helps those without employment to find a job and build a fulfilling career in the coffee industry, based at North Star Coffee Roasters by Leeds Dock. We opened ten months ago and, what I see every single day, tells me that the talent problem Yorkshire businesses are grappling with isn’t a supply problem. It’s an access problem.
The people are here. They are motivated, capable and hungry for the right opportunity; they just haven’t been given one yet.
Take Mika, who is in their mid-20s. Before joining Well Grounded, they had been unemployed, spending their days drawing and feeling isolated. Job applications led nowhere and to depression - something they had lived with for most of their life, had made it difficult to see a way forward. Our programme was suggested to them and, although they were nervous, they decided to give it a try. From the very beginning the course offered them something new: purpose, structure and a sense of possibility.
Fast forward a few months, and the impact has been transformative. The routine has improved their wellbeing, memory and motivation, and what’s more they’ve now gone on to be a permanent member of staff at a coffee shop in Leeds city centre.
Or May. She’s in her mid-50s, arrived in the UK from Hong Kong two years ago, and was turned down for every single job she applied for - despite a long professional career and even some prior coffee experience. Through Well Grounded, she learned new skills from the ground up, completed a work placement at North Star, and impressed the team so much that they offered her a permanent position.
These are not exceptional stories, they simply represent our reality. Since opening, more than 70 people have come through our Leeds Academy. Nationally, more than three quarters (77%) of Well Grounded graduates move into work, training or education.
My message to Yorkshire’s business community is this: the gap between the people who need work and the employers who need people is not as wide as it looks, what’s missing is the bridge. Free, accessible, skills-based training that removes every practical barrier - travel, food, qualifications, confidence - and connects motivated individuals directly to employers who are ready to hire them.
Specialty coffee turns out to be a remarkably effective bridge. It’s an industry that rewards craft, values people skills and offers genuine career progression - from barista to trainer, roaster, manager, business owner. It’s also a sector that is growing fast across the UK, with now more than 12,000 chain coffee shops and bakeries nationwide, roughly equivalent to 1.75 outlets for every 10,000 people. This follows an impressive nationwide average growth of nearly 13 per cent in the last three years alone.
And, the demand for skilled, work-ready staff consistently outpaces supply through conventional recruitment routes. Our model at Well Grounded works because it treats this gap seriously on both sides.
By Kieran John Fitzpatrick, Regional Programme Lead, Well Grounded Leeds Academy