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Medialab partners WYK Digital to pilot training programme

Medialab partners WYK Digital to pilot training programme
A WYK insights day at Medialab

Medialab is partnering non-profit social enterprise WYK Digital to pilot the latter’s new Leap training programme to help young talent advance their media and advertising careers.

The independent media agency has been a sponsor of WYK since 2024 and has now become the inaugural partner for the Leap initiative.

While WYK’s courses focus on young people entering the industry, Leap aims to offer essential skills development to help them stay in work and achieve long-term success.

The pilot is supporting 60 early-career employees, including 20 Medialab executives.

Over the 12-week programme, participants will undertake on-the-job training that has been co-developed with Medialab to hone their management, workplace navigation, time management and interpersonal skills.

The curriculum also includes bespoke workshops designed by confidence coach Kirsty Hulse, who founded employee training businesses Confidence Live and Roar.

Moreover, each participant will be assigned a mentor, who has committed to 10 hours of support.

According to Rob Jackson, founder of WYK, seven in 10 WYK graduates have a “positive outcome”, including securing permanent roles, within six months of completing its courses.

“There is still more work to be done. As one of the 120 companies to hire WYKers, Medialab appreciates that getting young talent into roles isn’t enough — it’s what happens after they’ve been hired,” he continued.

“Our latest collaboration will ensure early-career professionals can consistently move onwards and upwards, driving stronger job fulfilment and talent retention.”

Catherine Falla, head of HR at Medialab, added: “It’s been an exciting journey building the Leap training programme with WYK and we have received positive feedback from our entry-level talent in upskilling and increasing their confidence in their new roles.

“We look forward to building the next layer by improving on-the-job support and equipping our people with skills that allow them to grow.”

Leap is co-funded by Medialab and the government.

Since Medialab and WYK’s initial partnership, over 100 WYK students have attended insights days at the agency and Medialab has also offered six jobs to graduates so far.

WYK — which stands for “What You Know” — aims to support under-represented young people starting out in digital marketing and media based on what they know, not who they know.

Since launching its first free training initiative with the Prince’s Trust (now the King’s Trust) in 2020, 1,030 people have completed WYK courses.

These include ethnic minorities, people claiming universal credit and those without a university degree.

Citing a 2025 government white paper, WYK pointed out that one in eight young people are not in education, employment or training, while 9m adults lack “the basic skills they need to get on”.

Meanwhile, Institute of Student Employers data found that the average employer now receives 140 applications per graduate job — the highest in 30 years.

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