Skill Up Step Up: Chef Marcus Wareing backs our appeal – and meets some new recruits

Chef Marcus Wareing said there have never been more jobs available in the restaurant industry as he backed our Christmas appeal to help upskill unemployed youngsters to get them into the workplace.

The Michelin-starred chef and Masterchef judge said the large number of vacancies in hospitality offered opportunities, but said “the key is knowing how to get those jobs”. He added: “Because of Brexit there are more vacancies than ever. I have never, ever, ever seen a time like the staff shortage we have now. Every single chef, every single manager and every single hotelier is saying exactly the same thing.”

The 51-year-old was speaking at Marcus, his restaurant in the Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge, as he met the latest cohort of unemployed people being trained up by Springboard, an organisation that helps young people be “work ready” for careers in the hospitality industry.

Springboard is one of the charities we are funding in our £1m Skill Up Step Up campaign in partnership with Barclays LifeSkills. The new recruits were on a three-week employability course that will culminate with interviews for jobs with the catering company Compass.

Mr Wareing gave the new recruits a rousing speech to encourage them to work hard in their quest to find jobs, and revealed that his son, a student at Durham University, has chosen to work in McDonald’s rather than in the Marcus kitchen, in order to get a wide range of experience.

HOW YOU CAN HELP: Click here to make a donation and help us give more young people the training they need to get into work

He said: “Do you know what McDonald’s gives you? It gives you a career. My son went there because he wanted life skills, he wanted to see a different side.”

Referring to his kitchen at Marcus, Mr Wareing said: “This here is posh, this is luxury, that kitchen is a Formula One car, it’s the creme de la creme of kitchens. Not all kitchens are like that. I worked hard to build that kitchen, it didn’t just arrive here. I had to pay for it and build it. I started off in the lowest kitchens.”

Referring to vacancies, he said restaurants had started poaching staff and paying “humongous” amounts of money for people to work for them. Others are having to open for fewer hours to enable them to keep running.

Springboard recruit Chisom Thomas, 19, said he was surprised to hear that Mr Wareing’s son had turned down the chance to work in the Marcus kitchen for a job at McDonald’s. But Mr Wareing said: “I  can look at McDonald’s and say it’s not my type of food, but from a job offer and career point of view, they offer a lot, and as one of the biggest employers out there, they must be doing something right.”

He told the recruits the importance of working hard, adding: “People say to me, Marcus you must be incredibly talented. No, I am just a young man from Southport who worked hard at his career. That’s it. I don’t believe I am gifted, I just worked hard at an industry and a job that I absolutely love. All the things that came on from cookery – the books, TV, running restaurants – they are just add-ons. At the heart of who I am, I am just a cook.”

He said the recruits would have no reason not to have a job once they had completed the Springboard course, adding: “You are in good hands. If you fail, Springboard fails, and if Springboard fails, I fail.”

He told them: “There’s a job for everyone somewhere, you just have to go and find it. Don’t be afraid to bang on those doors. I have a daughter and two sons and I say exactly the same to them.”

Temi, 27, who hopes to become a pastry chef, said Mr Wareing’s encouragement was exactly what she wanted to hear after being rejected from several jobs. “I needed that, I really did.”

Bokuma Ebengo, 34, a carer who studied health and social care management, said she, too, was inspired. “Cooking is my passion,” she said. The mother of two wants to become a chef but had been finding it hard to get a break before joining the Springboard course. She had the chance to quiz the chefs in the Marcus kitchen about how they got into the industry and what kind of tasks new recruits would be asked to do. One chef pointed to a bowl of apples and replied: “You can start by peeling them.”

Mr Wareing emphasised the importance of continuing to learn throughout adult life, saying: “I still have a lot of food I want to learn, a lot of flavours I haven’t tasted, and a lot of people I want to meet. I am excited about the future.”

As the Springboard recruits left his restaurant, it was obvious they were just as excited about their own futures, now that they are being supported by the charity.

What are we doing? We have launched Skill Up Step Up, a £1m initiative in partnership with Barclays LifeSkills to upskill unemployed and disadvantaged young Londoners so they can be “work ready” and step up into sustainable jobs or apprenticeships.

Why are we doing this? Youth unemployment in London has soared by 55 per cent to 105,000 since the start of the pandemic, meaning that 21 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds are jobless at a time of record job vacancies of 1.17 million countrywide. This mismatch, caused largely by an employability skills and experience gap, is leading to wasted lives and billions of pounds of lost productivity for our economy.

How will it work? The £1m from Barclays will provide grant funding over two years for up to five outstanding, handpicked charities that provide disadvantaged jobless young Londoners with employability skills and wrap-around care to get them into the labour market and transform their lives. The charity partners we have announced so far are:

1. Springboard: they will support young people into jobs in the hospitality industry (hotels, restaurants, bars, leisure and tourism) via a three- to six-week programme that includes one-to-one mentoring, soft skills and employability development (confidence, work attitude, CV building, interview practice and time management), practical industry and hard skills training, including food safety and customer service, as well as access to work experience placements.

2. City Gateway: they will get young people work ready with a 12-week employability programme, including digital skills, a work placement, CV and interview skills and a dedicated one-to-one coach, extending to up to 20 weeks if they need English and/or maths qualifications, enabling them to gain entry level positions including apprenticeships in a wide range of sectors, including finance, digital media, marketing, retail, property and IT.

More partner charities will be announced in due course.

How can the young and jobless skill up? If you are aged 16-24 and want to upskill towards a job in hospitality, contact Springboard here.

If you want to upskill towards a job in any other sector, contact City Gateway here.

For tools, tips and learning resources visit www.barclayslifeskills.com

How can employers step up? We want companies – large, medium and small – to step up to the plate with a pledge to employ one or more trainees in a job or apprenticeship. They could work in your IT, customer service, human resources, marketing or sales departments, or any department with entry level positions. You will be provided with a shortlist of suitable candidates to interview. To get the ball rolling, contact the London Community Foundation, who are managing the process on: skillup@londoncf.org.uk

How can readers help? The more money we raise, the more young people we can skill up. To donate, click here