July 20, 2026
DWP-commissioned employability provision is largely paid by results, so a verified into-work outcome is what earns a provider its fee. On the Restart Scheme, about 280,000 participants had achieved a job outcome by April 2026, which was 88% of the Tender Performance Level of 310,000 and 118% of the Minimum Performance Level of 240,000 (source: DWP, Restart Scheme statistics to April 2026). Delivering below the contractual target is a live commercial risk, and with job vacancies down to an estimated 707,000 for March to May 2026 (source: ONS, Labour market overview, June 2026) the competition for genuine live roles is rising.
The addressable population is large and the programmes that serve it run at national scale. The UK economic inactivity rate was 21.0% for people aged 16 to 64 and the Claimant Count reached an estimated 1.712 million in May 2026 (source: ONS, Labour market overview, June 2026). DWP-commissioned provision reflects that scale: the Restart Scheme had recorded about 1,100,000 starts by April 2026 (source: DWP, Restart Scheme statistics to April 2026) and the Work and Health Programme about 350,000 starts (source: DWP, Work and Health Programme statistics to February 2026). For a provider, the constraint is rarely referral volume, it is access to genuine, still-open vacancies to place claimants into.
Spacewalk gives each programme or caseload a private, branded job board, so your advisers spend their time supporting claimants rather than trawling job boards.
Build your branded Spacewalk job board and invite your talent community in minutes
Whether you choose to stream roles automatically, invite employers or post them yourself they are automatically matched to your talent pool
Track applications, placements and community engagement from one reporting dashboard
Unlike generic job boards, Spacewalk gives you a branded, private or public jobs marketplace your talent actually trust, with sourcing, matching and reporting running automatically in the background.
Providers process claimant and participant personal data, so UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 apply in full, overseen by the ICO. Where there is a power imbalance, consent is often not an appropriate lawful basis, so providers typically rely on other bases such as legal obligation, contractual necessity or legitimate interests, and must document that choice (source: ICO, employment guidance).
Health and disability information about claimants is special category data needing an additional Article 9 condition and extra safeguards, which is directly relevant given the long-term-sickness profile of many caseloads (source: ICO, data protection and workers' health information). Data sharing between DWP and providers is governed by dedicated provider guidance, and claimant data should stay within that approved framework and be matched only to genuine, employer-direct vacancies rather than passed to third-party aggregators (source: DWP, Restart provider guidance, Chapter 20).
This is context, not legal advice.
This is an illustrative scenario, not a customer story. A UK employability provider running a Restart caseload stands up a branded job board as claimants are referred. Instead of emailing job links, advisers watch an employer-direct feed match each claimant to live, relevant roles, and see application and interview activity per cohort. When the provider needs to evidence into-work outcomes against its contractual target, it exports job starts by cohort rather than assembling screenshots.
With claimant-level data. Spacewalk tracks registrations, board usage, applications, interviews and job starts per cohort, so you have the underlying activity behind a first-earnings or sustained job outcome rather than a summary of adviser hours.
Because provision is largely payment-by-results. On Restart, job outcomes are measured against a Tender Performance Level and a Minimum Performance Level, so a verified job start, not activity, is what earns the fee.
From an employer-direct stream of verified, active roles with direct apply links, matched to each claimant's skills, seniority and location. Your team can also post roles or invite employers to post, but the vacancies are not scraped from job boards or aggregators.
Yes. Each programme or caseload gets its own branded board, so the experience carries your brand rather than a generic job site.
No. Right-to-work verification stays with the hiring employer. Spacewalk connects claimants to live vacancies and tracks their progress.
UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, overseen by the ICO. Health and disability information is special category data needing an Article 9 condition, and claimant data should stay within the DWP data-sharing framework.
Spacewalk supports employability and into-work providers worldwide, including employability job board software in the United States, employment programme platforms for Australian providers and employability software for Canadian providers.
Explore Spacewalk for UK job placement schemes, UK skills bootcamps, UK adult education providers and UK outplacement providers.
