Shaw Trust

Who we are

Shaw Trust is a national charity that helps people facing disadvantage into work, gain skills and take control of their futures.

Over the past thirty years, the Trust has striven to combine its charitable heart with its commercial brain to provide the very best support to the people it was set up to serve.

Shaw Trust is the largest third sector contractor for Department for Work and Pensions.

We deliver both mainstream (Work Programme) and specialist (Work Choice) employment support schemes across Britain and help over 50,000 people per year. It also helps people gain skills and into work via a wide range of other activities including education and skills contracts, 49 shops and a national volunteering programme as well as health and social enterprise projects.

Shaw Trust is also an Approved Sponsor for Academies, and sponsors Shaw Education Trust (link opens new window): a multi-academy trust which focuses on supporting special schools and mainstream schools serving disadvantaged communities.

Shaw Trust employs nearly 1,600 people across over 200-plus locations. We are supported by over 600 volunteers and deliver contracts for eight major funding agencies including the European Social Fund, the Department of Work and Pensions and the Big Lottery Fund. It has a range of international partners in Australia (Interwork), Poland (Intergracja Foundation) and Romania (Motivation Romania).

Vision, mission and values

Shaw Trust is a national charity that helps people facing disadvantage to find work, gain skills and take control of their futures

Our vision is for:

A society in which everyone has the opportunity for employment, inclusion and independence.

Our mission is to:

Deliver services for people at disadvantage so they can gain life and employability skills in order to live more independently, secure sustainable employment and actively contribute to family and community life.

To educate and influence society to remove barriers and create opportunities for those at disadvantage; to build supportive communities and ultimately, a more inclusive society.

Shaw Trust values

Our values underpin everything we do. They shape the way we work with each other, with customers and with partners. Our values are as follows:

To be people-centred

To ensure that everything we do is to realise the full potential of the people we are here to help.

To act with integrity

To be an organisation that is open and transparent, actively embraces equality and diversity and has an honest, inclusive and respectful culture which everyone trusts.

To be innovative

To be a creative, forward-thinking organisation which finds new ways of doing things to break down barriers to independent living and sustainable employment.

To be best-in-class

To be a top-performing provider of employment and independent living services, that helps as many people as possible into work, or on the journey towards independent living.

To be an employer of choice that leads by example, creating a best-in-class working environment and recruits and invests in the best people.

To be accountable

To encourage everyone to take personal responsibility for their actions.

For clients to understand their role in working towards employment or a more independent way of living.

For staff to be empowered to do their jobs and take personal responsibility for carrying out their roles, in line with our values and code of conduct.To be people-centred

To ensure that everything we do is to realise the full potential of the people we are here to help.