Being a young carer for his single mother has shaped Bruce Devlin’s life in every way.
From the age of about 10, Bruce took responsibility for everything – from administering her daily medication, to doing the household shopping, cooking and cleaning. He would even counsel her when she had suicidal thoughts that came from the borderline personality disorder she lived with.
He scraped through school, leaving secondary school with the lowest grade of A-levels. Even if he had achieved higher grades, attending university was hardly an option, nor was getting a part-time job, due to the full-time responsibility of caring for his mother.
Despite Bruce’s devastation when his mother died in 2021, wallowing in grief was not an option. There would be no more disability or carer’s benefits, leaving Bruce to pay the rent and bills on his own. He was in desperate need of a job, but he had no qualifications or part-time work experience.
“My whole life up until that point was being a carer, so I was very lost,” he says. “It was my honour and privilege to look after [my mum], in the same way she looked after me on her own. I didn’t have much of a direction to go in, and really needed to figure my stuff out before bills started piling up. And life kind of devoured me, to be honest.”
Bruce, based in Glasgow and now 26, could have easily become just another NEET – a young person not in employment, education or training – whose numbers are reaching their highest since 2014, according to Government data. Around 957,000 people aged 16 to 24 in the UK are classed as NEET, or around 12.8 per cent of that age group.
For many young people like Bruce, getting a foot in the door is simply impossible with no qualifications, experience, support or connections. But that changed after a meeting with his Job Centre work coach, who came across Generation, a non-profit which partners with companies to identify roles which they are struggling to fill. The scheme develops specific training programmes for them lasting several months – no degree required.
It was the lifeline Bruce needed. Getting a place on Generation’s first IT support boot camp in Scotland – plus benefiting from the programme’s CV and interview coaching – landed him an interview with 2i Testing, a company which tests other companies’ software and digital systems.
Thanks to his new skills – and a six-month placement with a gaming company – Bruce got the job. Since starting in 2022, he’s since been promoted to a level three senior quality engineer, and was named “Digital Tech Rising Star” at this year’s ScotlandIS Digital Technology Awards.
For Bruce Devlin, getting a foot in the door seemed impossible with no qualificationsMost importantly, though, he has a comfortable, stable, full-time income, and the foundations of a long-term career.
“I’ve always wanted to actually be an adult – get a mortgage, maybe get a car, all that kind of stuff that growing up in a family on benefits, you wouldn’t even have imagined. Getting a full-time salary and being a contributing member of society is an amazing achievement,” he says.
“Without this, I’d be just another person on jobseeker’s allowance, wasting any potential I had.”
Generation placed 700 people like Bruce in jobs last year, with demand rising from employers to find people to fill jobs like his, as well as “green” jobs like solar panel and heat pump installers, plus skilled trades, healthcare, and customer service and sales.
The number of placements has jumped 20 per cent from last year, demonstrating that there’s real value in creating career pathways that don’t need a university degree. It’s a practical solution that addresses a real problem – not just the one of rising youth unemployment, but of skills and talent gaps in the industries Generation specialises in.
It also propels social mobility: 42 per cent of Generation’s learners come from the UK’s most deprived areas. The scheme offers people from underprivileged backgrounds the chance at a career they may not have otherwise had exposure to.
But are employers getting on board with ditching degrees?
Generation’s UK CEO, Michael Houlihan, is concerned that not enough employers are open to a skills-based approach over a preference for candidates with a formal degree, though.
“A number of employers have adopted a skill-based approach, and they are benefiting from it massively, but they are still the exception to the rule,” he says. “Employers adopting a skills-based hiring approach is such a huge social enabler.”
One employer taking a more open-minded approach to hiring is Publicis Groupe UK, a network of marketing, advertising, digital and communications agencies, which has hired 79 apprentices without university degrees over the past four years.
It’s a deliberate effort to create real diversity across an industry that has historically struggled to boost the numbers of underrepresented groups, from women, to ethnic minorities and people with a working-class background.
“We do better work when we embrace difference, so we are focused on opening up the industry to more people,” says Paula Cunnington, Publicis Groupe UK’s chief talent officer.
“Creating more routes in is not just about opportunity – it helps bring in talent with different experiences, perspectives and ways of thinking that strengthen creativity and decision‑making.
Ability, curiosity and real-world experience are far better indicators of future success, particularly in a fast-changing industry like advertising.”
“I just wanted to be financially free”
Jessica Andrea Carvalho, from London, was raised by her mother after her father died when she was 14. She had planned to attend university, breaking the cycle of a lack of education in her family – but the day before she was due to start her media and marketing degree at Royal Holloway University of London, she made the last-minute decision to reject her offer.
Jessica Andrea Carvalho rejected her university offer last minute. She opted for the apprenticeship route insteadHer gut told her two things – that it made no sense to take on such a huge debt with no guarantees at the end, and that she couldn’t face three more years of sitting in a classroom, learning from lectures and textbooks.
“I just wanted to be financially free, and to be able to provide for myself so my mum can finally start living her life, because she’s getting a bit older now,” she says.
Jessica began following apprenticeship content creators on TikTok. A number of them recommended applying to Multiverse, an AI upskilling platform which announced last year that it would create 15,000 AI apprenticeships with a number of UK employers.
Jessica got a place on a year-long digital business and data apprenticeship in 2023, during which she divided her time between studying, and paid work as a media planning apprentice at Zenith, an agency within Publicis Groupe.
She was immediately offered a full-time role, and went on to complete a further 18-month development programme within the agency. Now, aged 21, Jessica has been promoted to a global senior account executive.
Had she gone through with university, she would have graduated last June – and may still be looking for a job. Now, she is hoping to buy a property with her partner this year.
“The market to find a job after uni is so difficult. There’s not one friend that I can name who has a job within their qualification field,” says Jessica. “I’m training execs that have just left uni, and I’m hoping to get promoted again soon.”
Back in Glasgow, Bruce is adamant that skills-based training and hiring is about “widening the gate, not lowering the bar”. He now has the resources to indulge his hobby as a games developer, and is certain he has done his mum proud.
“She was my guide,” he says. “She always encouraged me to be the different person that I am.”
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