A change of work shouldn't be able to derail a life.
We're building lasting career support so people can steer their working lives with confidence and dignity, and communities have the capability to support them.
These are the five commitments we hold ourselves to, and the evidence by which we expect to be judged.
Why we exist
Working life has never been stable for everyone. People move in and out of work as industries change, jobs end, health shifts and caring responsibilities take priority. Technology may increase the pace of that disruption, but it did not create it.
The support around work still treats these changes as exceptions. A programme opens, helps for a while and closes. People are expected to sort out their working lives once, then manage alone when circumstances change again.
Insecurity at work reaches beyond the individual. It affects households, local economies and the trust that holds communities together.
The founding case for Stay Nimble® was explicit about the stakes: job insecurity and inequality create conditions for poor social cohesion, othering and populism, threatening democracy.
That conviction is why our purpose reaches beyond employment and commits the company to maintaining social cohesion.
We want working life to be something people can steer, rather than something that simply happens to them. We want communities to have standing support that meets the need already present and can stretch if disruption becomes more widespread.
In 2018, we wrote that purpose into our articles of association. In plain terms, Stay Nimble exists to help people make confident career decisions throughout their working lives, support communities as local economies change, and contribute to the social cohesion that work and financial security help sustain.
Read the exact wording, Article 3
"empower individuals in career decision making and improve their employability through performance coaching, data provision, and lifelong learning; support employment resilience in communities as local economies rapidly change; and maintain social cohesion through the current binding nature of financial wellbeing and work."
Most companies can change a mission statement. Our directors are required to run Stay Nimble in pursuit of this purpose. It cannot be quietly set aside when circumstances change.
The five priorities
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1. Support that outlasts every programme
Programmes end. The reality of working life doesn't.
We build support that stays. Everyone who has joined Stay Nimble still has access today. Nobody has lost that access because a programme closed or a funding stream ended.
People can return when a job ends, when their health changes, when work stops fitting around the rest of life, or when they simply need to find a different direction.
Coming back isn't a failure. It is the infrastructure working as intended.
Whichever door someone came through, they keep the key.
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2. Purpose before profit, bound into the company
Our directors must run Stay Nimble in the way most likely to achieve its social purpose. They cannot put shareholder benefit ahead of it.
At least 51% of profits must go back into that purpose. If Stay Nimble closes, most of what remains must go to a not-for-profit organisation doing similar work. The five principles of a purpose-driven businessdeveloped by Blueprint for Better Business are written into our articles word for word.
Publishing our purpose and principles on this website is also required by those articles, as is producing an impact report every year.
The duties in detail
Purpose first, by law
Most profits reinvested
Remaining assets protected on closure
The Blueprint for Better Business principles
Purpose and principles published here
An impact report every year
These rules were adopted in 2018 using the Purposely framework developed by UnLtd and Bates Wells.
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3. Capability that communities keep
Permanent support should not depend on one organisation always being present. It should leave more capability behind.
Career conversations already happen in barbershops, libraries, community centres, housing teams and at school gates. We train and equip trusted people as Career Allies so those conversations are better informed and good support begins in places people already know.
Career Allies do not replace qualified career professionals. They help people take an earlier step, recognise when more support is needed, and create a trusted route towards it.
The skills, relationships and confidence built through this work remain useful after a funding period ends. Our responsibility is not simply to deliver activity in a place. It is to help communities retain more capacity than they had before.
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4. Keep what works at the centre
Research into effective employment support gives us a clear set of principles: a relationship that lasts, connection with the other realities in someone's life, early contact with real employers, nobody excluded as "not ready", and support for as long as it is needed.
The way support is delivered can change. Those principles remain our test.
We apply them to our work with qualified professionals, our community partnerships, and Ask.Nim, our personal career assistant. Ask.Nim is being built to extend access to proper support, maintain continuity and help people reach human expertise when they need it. It is not a replacement for professional judgement.
Those principles also shape our work on the market itself. Effective support should bring people into earlier contact with real employers and create room for capability to be seen through human connection, before people are mechanically sorted from words on a page.
We judge every new approach by whether it strengthens what works or weakens it.
What we assess
Does support build a relationship over time?
Is it connected to the other circumstances someone is navigating?
Does it help people reach real employers sooner?
Are all circumstances supported, with no one screened out as "not ready"?
Can people continue for as long as they need?
Are practitioners properly trained, supported and supervised?
Social value can look precise while resting on generous assumptions. We take a more careful approach.
We use the UK Social Value Bank, which assigns independently researched proxy values to defined improvements in people's lives.
An evidenced outcome is recorded only when its threshold has been met. Each record includes the qualifying evidence and a written account of what happened.
Counting conservatively means using the value supported by the evidence, keeping an audit trail and being clear about how every figure was produced. We do not claim that Stay Nimble controls the labour market or deserves sole credit for everything that follows.
How the measurement works
Our model and values were reviewed with HACT in early 2026.
Confidence, job security and financial comfort are assessed through before-and-after comparisons. Employment is tracked beyond the initial start, through retention and progression.
The methodology is published, and an impact report is produced for every financial year, as our articles require.
The evidence
The numbers, and what they mean
These figures come from Stay Nimble's reporting system and update as the evidence grows.
£37M+
Verified social value calculated using UK Social Value Bank proxy values from evidenced improvements recorded through our work.
10,380
evidenced outcomes
Made up of 8,874 employment and training improvements and 1,506 wellbeing improvements.
This is a count of evidenced improvements, not individual people. One person may have more than one evidenced outcome.
21,000+
people
Supported through employment, training and wellbeing.
The number of people supported and the number of evidenced outcomes are different measures. Not every instance of support produces an evidenced outcome, and one person may have more than one.
4.9/5
The average rating given by the people we support.
Most organisational timelines list launches. Ours shows persistence.
2016
The founding observation: instability was not an exception in working life, but the support around it was still temporary. That observation remains underneath everything we do.
2017
Stay Nimble was founded to build something more permanent.
2018
Purpose-first articles were adopted. Purpose before profit, most profits reinvested, and remaining assets protected for a similar cause. Those rules remain binding, word for word.
2018
The first working adults joined Stay Nimble. They still have access today.
2018 to today
The founding thinking was to create support that would be always in the pocket, guiding, helping, supporting. The Workspace, remote coaching and Ask.Nim are how that promise is being carried into practice.
2020
When the pandemic arrived, remote coaching was already part of the model. Support could continue because it had been built for an ongoing need, not assembled in response to one crisis.
2025
Career Allies began building more career-conversation capability inside communities, with ordinary people trained and equipped in places people already trust.
2026
Stay Nimble passed £37M+ in verified social value. The original observation had become more relevant, not less.
The systems around work were not built for our reality. We have been changing this since 2017.
