What Amazon's Youth Promise Commits: 30,000 UK Entry-Level Roles by 2030

Amazon has launched the Amazon Youth Promise in the UK, committing 30,000 entry-level roles to young people from areas with the fewest opportunities from 2026 to 2030. The launch was announced on 20 October 2026.

The pledge comes from a company that Reuters reported in January 2026 was planning corporate job cuts. Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden welcomed it as support for the government's Youth Guarantee, the scheme meant to give every young person a chance to earn or learn.

The Commitments: Pay, Placements and Recruitment

Amazon says all of the entry-level roles start at more than £31,000 a year pro rata, with private medical insurance and a pension from day one. The roles are operational jobs in picking, packing and shipping at more than 100 UK sites, and need no CV or prior experience. Retail Times gives the starting rate as £15.10 an hour, the equivalent of more than £31,000 a year pro rata.

Amazon says it will raise placements from about 900 in 2026 to more than 3,000 a year by 2030, for more than 10,000 in total, and that more than 6,000 of those places are new. LBC and Irish News give the total as 10,000. Formats include one-week placements for school students and young people not in work, three-week online T Level team projects and 45-day T Level industry programmes.

Unsuccessful applicants aged 18 to 24 receive an email with guidance, links to free job-search help and a direct link to reapply. Amazon held more than 180 recruitment events last year and says more than 2,800 people started work in the past 12 months after events run with Job Centres, local authorities and other partners. From 2027, events expand to Merseyside, Stoke-on-Trent, Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire, alongside DWP Youth Hubs.

What Amazon and the Government Said

John Boumphrey, Amazon's UK country manager, said the young people he meets when he visits sites had no CV or experience but a positive attitude and a willingness to learn. Amazon says almost half of people who joined its operations teams last year came straight from education or unemployment.

Pat McFadden, the Work and Pensions Secretary, welcomed the pledge as backing for the Youth Guarantee. Retail Times, LBC and Irish News all quote him saying the government's mission is 'to get Britain working.' Amazon's release says it has signed up to the Youth Guarantee and will work with the Department for Work and Pensions to expand its programmes.

LBC also reports that the government's TechFirst programme, open to all secondary schools, aims to reach one million students by 2028, and that tech employers including Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Arm and Kainos are backing the drive.

The Corporate Cuts Reported Earlier

Amazon's release does not mention job cuts. In January 2026, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity, that Amazon was planning a second round of corporate cuts as part of a goal of cutting about 30,000 corporate roles. The new round was expected to be roughly the same size as the October round, which cut some 14,000 white-collar jobs, and to reportedly include Amazon Web Services, retail, Prime Video and human resources. Amazon declined to comment.

Andy Jassy, Amazon's chief executive, said on a third-quarter earnings call that the October round was 'not really financially driven' and was not really AI-driven either. Virginia Business reports him attributing the cuts to company culture and excess bureaucracy, and reports an internal letter that linked the round to AI.

The release refers to the AWS Skills to Jobs Tech Alliance, launched in the UK in 2025, which aims to prepare 100,000 learners with AI skills by 2030. The pledge and the earlier reported cuts come from the same company, and the announcement itself does not link the two.

Dated Targets and Partner Programmes

The commitments carry dated targets: more than 3,000 placements a year by 2030, and 30,000 roles across 2026 to 2030. Starting pay is stated as above £31,000 pro rata. Partner programmes add to the figures. The JOBS Project with Barnardo's will support 2,000 young people from 2027 to 2030. Retail Times reports that Amazon committed earlier in 2026 to more than 1,000 supported internships by 2030. Amazon says more than 300 young people with learning disabilities and autism have completed the DFN Project SEARCH programme since 2021. Over 80% moved into permanent employment, against a national rate of 6% for adults with learning disabilities.

Other partners named in the release include The King's Trust, Media Trust, Forces for Employment and the Opening Shift programme, which runs with the British Retail Consortium and the DWP.

Amazon's release puts the number of young people in the UK who are not in education, employment or training at around a million, which the release describes as the highest rate in a decade.