The challenge
Ask almost any new entrant trying to break into the digital & technologies sector and you’ll hear the same thing: you can’t get a job without experience, yet you can’t get experience without a job. Work experience is listed as a requirement for many entry-level roles, yet meaningful opportunities to gain it are limited.
At CyNam, we wanted to do something practical about that, so we teamed up with Gloucestershire College and their fantastic pool of entry-level talent looking for new challenges.
A new approach
We’ve been piloting an innovative approach to work experience that gives new entrants to the digital & technologies sector access to meaningful work. The model is simple: we take live, real industry briefs and place aspiring professionals at the heart of delivering them, with CyNam project-managing throughout and technical industry mentors and educators providing support.
How it started: the Digital Youth Pass pilot
We proved the approach with our groundbreaking pilot.
Following Gloucestershire Tech Week 2025, we met with Cheltenham Borough Council’s No Child Left Behind team to learn more about their Youth Pass, a project designed to provide young people in Cheltenham with a gateway to the opportunities, events and resources around them.
As the conversation developed, we saw a bigger opportunity. To develop a Digital Youth Pass that would not only provide a service for young people – but would be designed & built by young people. CyNam took on the role of project manager and brought nine students from Gloucestershire College on board to help design and build the Pass itself. This was supplemented with technical mentorship from Coc00n (a cyber security SME and NCSC for Startups alumnus) and support from teaching staff at the College and No Child Left Behind throughout.
That live brief became the blueprint for how this new approach to work experience is delivered.
The impact so far
For most of the nine students, the pilot was their first taste of meaningful work experience. Many had struggled to secure a relevant placement in the cyber or digital sector.
“At No Child Left Behind, we have wanted to develop a Youth Pass for a number of years – a platform designed to empower young people by providing access to exclusive local discounts, events and opportunities, while promoting social inclusion, economic accessibility and community engagement. Seeing this vision start to become a reality and deliver real social value is incredibly inspiring. What makes the Youth Pass particularly special is that it is being built by young people, informed by young people and created for young people. Not only will it improve access to new opportunities, but it also provides genuine, real-life experience of work for the young people involved in its development. We believe it has enormous potential to make a lasting impact on the lives of young people across our community.” – No Child Left Behind, Cheltenham Borough Council
What’s next
The pilot showed the approach works. Now we’re taking it into its next phase by applying the same model to more live industry briefs, so that many more new entrants can gain the experience they need to start their careers.
How you can get involved
There are three key ways to support the programme:
- Live project briefs – offer a genuine industry brief with real business value for participants to help deliver.
- Sponsorship – help us fund and scale the approach so that more new entrants can take part.
- Technical mentorship – share your expertise and guide participants through real-world challenges.
If you’d like to be part of building something meaningful for new entrants to the sector and for the future of digital & tech in Gloucestershire, we’d love to hear from you.
Get in touch at info@cynam.org to find out more.