Opening doors to jobs

We aim to help one million people in our communities gain new skills and open doors through training, work experience and equal employment opportunities.

Our commitment and goals

By 2024 support youth services through every restaurant

By 2025 have supported 3,000 apprentices

By 2030 help one million people gain new skills and open doors to jobs

Delivering on our commitments

We believe in championing great people, whatever their background – and helping to open doors to skills, jobs, and opportunities. We understand that not everyone has the same start in life, so we’ve set a goal of helping one million people into training, jobs or new opportunities by 2030. To us, that’s not just a number. That’s one million lives that we can help to change for the better.

Two McDonald's crew members working in McDonald's restaurant.

Giving young people confidence and skills

Through our presence in towns and cities across the UK and Ireland, we have always sought to help people access opportunities and make the most of their potential. Our Plan for Change goal to support youth services through every restaurant is taking this to a new level. By supporting young people’s emotional, educational and social development we want to give them confidence and skills that they can take forward in life and work.

To support this commitment, we’ve harnessed our partnership with Children in Need to run trials with some of our restaurants to really understand what our communities need and how we can make the biggest difference. As a result, in 2024 we’re now rolling out our Makin' It Programme and working with BBC Children in Need to scale up the matching of our restaurants to local projects and partners and measure our impact.

As we bring new partners on board we’re excited about the difference we can make to young people’s futures by harnessing the passions of the people across our restaurants.

McDonald's apprentice badge with four gold stars

Expanding our apprenticeship programme

Our apprenticeships programme has already given over 20,000 people a flying start to their careers since 2006, including 2,445 apprentices between 2018 and February 2024. Opportunities are available for every restaurant role providing access to programmes ranging from hospitality industry skills to corporate apprenticeships in finance, digital marketing, project management and data science. We’re recognised externally in national rankings and awards including the NAS Top 100 Apprenticeship Employers 2023, and Rate My Apprenticeship Best 100 Apprenticeship Employers.

To celebrate National Apprenticeship Week we are launching our own Apprenticeship Awards in 2024 to celebrate and recognise apprentices and mentors across the business who go above and beyond. The Awards Ceremony will take place in the Summer of 2024 to announce the winner across four categories.

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Food and Farming Careers

Our focus on great people extends to our supply chain as well. We work with over 23,000 British and Irish farmers, helping them through our Farm Forward programme to build sustainable businesses, for themselves and for the planet. It’s not just about people who are already farmers either. By 2030, we will kick-start over 100 careers in food and farming for young people from diverse backgrounds through our McDonald’s Young Talent programme.

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Picture of McDonald's Assistant Manager Kieran

The people behind our Plan

"The graduate apprenticeship gives us the why behind what we do everyday, day in, day out. Within business management itself, there’s such a broad range of topics. I’m already applying the learnings from the GA programme within my job, helping to leverage talent in the team. There is a lot of work involved, however the rewards are there, and it really does turn a job into a career."

Kieran, Assistant Manager, Wishaw

Helping 1 million people into training, jobs or new opportunities

We’re proud to be able to make a positive impact on the communities where we operate by supporting people into work. In addition to directly employing over 170,000 people, representing a mix of all ages and life stages, we run a range of programmes to help people into work. Since we launched our Plan for Change, to June 2023 these programmes helped over 180,000 people to gain new skills and open doors to jobs.

Our new digital education and skills platform, Taste for Work, launched in September 2023. Created with education experts, it aims to support the transition from school to work by providing vital skills such as communication and goal setting. Within the first eighteen weeks the campaign reached 130,000 young people in over 550 schools, many in Government-specified education ‘cold spots’, including almost 20% serving special educational needs.

McDonald’s ‘Get Job Ready' and Virtual Work Experience websites, delivered with Youth Employment UK, provide free support to build skills and careers confidence. In the first six months of 2023, over 31,000 young people accessed the online courses to help prepare themselves for the world of work.

Two restaurant workers smiling at each other.

Inclusive and diverse

From our senior leaders to our restaurant teams, we aim to reflect the diverse communities we are part of and stand up for individuality and equality.

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Graphic highlighting the 5 pillars of McDonald's Plan for Change.

Our long-term goals in full

See the details behind our Plan.

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