The Skill Mill has been named Social Investment Pioneer at the NatWest SE100 Awards

On 13 May, at a celebration evening in Manchester, The Skill Mill was named Social Investment Pioneer at the NatWest SE100 Impact Pioneer Awards 2026. This is a recognition for groundbreaking or innovative deals and funds in social and impact investment.

The awards ceremony

For over a decade, The Skill Mill has been helping young people to leave reoffending behind. We employ young people on paid environmental work in their own communities: restoring green spaces, clearing waterways, reducing flood risk and improving the places where they live. They earn properly, gain qualifications, and receive personalised support to step into long-term employment or education when their time with us comes to an end.

The result is a programme that does two things at once: reducing reoffending among young people who are too often written off, and delivering tangible environmental benefits for the communities around them.

Why we were recognised: The award acknowledges our newly launched Social Outcomes Partnership - a landmark collaboration with Bridges Outcomes Partnerships and the Youth Endowment Fund that began in March 2026 and is, by number of delivery areas, the UK's largest social outcomes partnership.

The model is genuinely different from most funding arrangements in our sector. Here's how it works:

• Social investors, coordinated by Bridges Outcomes Partnerships, provide flexible working capital upfront so the programme can get up and running.

• Local authorities - the outcome funders - pay only once measurable outcomes are achieved by the young people we support.

• The Youth Endowment Fund is supporting the partnership and funding a randomised control trial, conducted by ICF, to rigorously evaluate the programme's impact.

• Our own trading income from environmental and construction services for local authorities, businesses and non-profits helps subsidise the programme and keeps costs down for commissioners.

Over the next two years, the partnership is expected to support up to 352 young people across up to 22 local authorities in England and Wales - offering paid work on environmental projects in their own communities, alongside training, qualifications and personalised support.

It's a model that's been a decade in the making, and one we're really proud to see recognised at this scale.

The Skill Mill - team of young people working outdoors

We were also delighted that The Skill Mill has been named in the NatWest SE100 Index for the seventh year running. It’s a continued recognition of our performance and impact among the UK's leading social enterprises. To be on that list once is wonderful. To be on it seven years in a row feels genuinely humbling.

And our Managing Director David Parks OBE was named in the first NatWest SE100 Impact Leader Index - a brand-new recognition for the leaders shaping the social enterprise sector.

A few words on the wider recognition

This latest win joins a handful of others we've been fortunate to receive over the past few years:

• In 2021, we were honoured to win the Youth Justice category at the Children & Young People Now Awards - recognition for our work supporting young people leaving the justice system.

• Also in 2021, we received two Queen's Awards for Enterprise, in the Promoting Opportunity and Sustainable Development categories - for our work reducing youth reoffending.

• In 2025, we were named Environmental Social Enterprise of the Year at the Social Enterprise UK Awards, in recognition of our environmental work.

• And in 2026, Social Investment Pioneer at the NatWest SE100 Awards, for the funding model that makes the work possible at scale.

Four awards across four different facets of what we do: youth justice, opportunity, environment, and the financial model that holds it all together. Each one is, in its own way, a sign that the approach we've believed in for over a decade is being seen and supported.  

In the entertainment world, an artist who wins an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony is called an EGOT winner. We're not entirely sure what the social enterprise equivalent is - a CYP-QUEEN-SEUK-SE100? - but whatever it's called, we're deeply grateful for it.