Grid for Good
Find out more about the programme and how to get involved.

What is Grid for Good?

Grid for Good is a flagship energy industry programme led by National Grid to deliver a positive impact to socio-economically disadvantaged young people. The scheme sees us working with our supply chain partners to provide training and employment opportunities for young people and with charities to access a diverse range of talented young people with the power to help us reach our net zero goals.  

Grid for Good is all about helping young people, aged 16-24, who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Our charity partners will seek out the young people who can benefit from the scheme, but we’re targeting the following groups of young people with the scheme:  

  • Ex-offenders 

  • Those with low educational attainment 

  • The recently unemployed 

  • Those from ethnically diverse backgrounds and facing extra socio-economic disadvantage or are ex-offenders.  

We’ve already helped 300 young people through our pilots and trials while we’ve been fine tuning the programme; this has encompassed 2,000 volunteering hours from our employees so far. But we want to do more. Our goals are to deliver:  

12,000

volunteering hours, positively impacting 4,000 young people, in our first year  

125,000

volunteering hours, positively impacting 22,500 young people, by 2030. 

 

Why was Grid for Good set up?  

Unemployment and social exclusion amongst young people existed before the Covid-19 pandemic, but the economic downturn in the UK and US has seen youth unemployment double, pushing young people even further away from the job market.  Many signs are indicating it will get far worse. Now more than ever we need to show support for our communities the US and the UK and Grid for Good is coordinating action to help give young people hope of meaningful employment. 

What opportunities are there for young people in the energy industry?  

Climate change is the biggest challenge facing our generation and it has led to a transformative era in the energy industry. This has opened up a wealth of opportunities for people of all backgrounds to play a part in helping us to find cleaner ways to power our lives. In the UK alone our industry needs to recruit for 400,000 jobs between now and 2050 and the situation is likely to be similar in the US. There’s never been a more exciting time to work in the energy industry and there’s never been a greater need to train up a more diverse pool of talented young people to help us innovate to reach net zero.  

We also need to more directly address our need for a more diverse workplace with the talent to help us tackle the global net zero challenge.  

How to get involved 

Young people aged 16-24 

If you want to find out more about how Grid for Good can help you improve your skills and open up opportunities in the energy industry, you can get in touch with the following charities to find out more:  

UK

US

 

  

 

Partners & charities  

We are actively seeking other businesses and charities to join up to become part of the Grid for Good programme. To find out more please get in touch.  

If you’re interested in finding out more about getting involved with Grid for Good as a charity or company, please fill out your details and someone from the team will be in touch soon.

Get in touch

Learn more 

Maryam’s journey – from refugee to dream job

Maryam fled from her home ending up as a refugee in the UK. She was living in the YMCA in Birmingham, searching for a job when a chance meeting with the Grid for Good team led to an opportunity at National Grid. Her hard work and enthusiasm meant that she was ultimately offered her dream job.

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