Sports Leadership Academy

The sports and physical activity labour market has recently seen 42% growth, employing more than twice the 16–24-year-olds working in the wider economy (CIMSPA). The sector is expanding rapidly, with increasingly new opportunities and roles available to meet demand in areas such as community and professional sport, health and fitness industry, education and training and sports business. Together, we want to develop, deliver and communicate a set of pathways so that underserved young Londoners can access these jobs, through the Sports Leadership Academy. 

This one-year programme, in partnership with the Mayor of London (MoL) and London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), will be delivered alongside StreetGames and League Leaders.  

The Sports Leadership Academy will increase the skills, knowledge, confidence and aspirations of 100 young people aged 14-24 who live in some of London’s most underserved communities. It will be delivered through a series of bespoke training opportunities, practical work experiences and Sports Industry Insight Sessions. 

Central to the Sports Leadership Academy will be the formation of a Youth Academy Board, made up of 20 of the 100 young people – youth voice and the lived experiences of young people will be the key driver behind the curriculum – ensuring the programme is created by young people, for young people. 

Programme Outline

Through this programme, we aim to: 

• Identify and engage underserved young people who desire to enter the sport workforce  
• Provide exciting, fun and positive development opportunities to inspire and ensure the next generation of the sports workforce are more work ready and have greater knowledge and understanding of opportunities in the sector 
• To work with partners, youth organisations and young people to better understand underserved young people’s journeys, including barriers and the key pillars of support and training required
• To allow youth voice to play a key role in programme design and development, ensuring the programme is created for young people, by young people

The programme will be split into 4 main phases: 

How to Apply: 

Let us help you develop your young people to become more work ready. From your organisation, we need one committed young person to be part of our Youth Academy Board, and four others to be part of the opportunity.    

Applications open on Monday 24th April and the deadline to apply for this opportunity is Monday 15th May, at 11:59pm. We are keen to hear from organisations in: Bexley, Brent, Croydon, Enfield, Hackney, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Lambeth, Lewisham and Redbridge.   

Before starting your online application, please take the time to read the Sports Leadership Academy Guidance Document. Please note, you will not be able to save your answers on SurveyMonkey if you exit the page so please do have your answers ready. We have provided the questions in a word version, which can be found here.

Get in Touch 

If you require any further information regarding the programme or your application, please contact Marco (Employability Manager) or Radhika (Sports Programmes Officer), at sports@londonyouth.org.