Youth Unemployment on the Rise: Manchester Startup Aims to Innovate Hiring
Youth unemployment is becoming a significant issue, with many young job seekers turning to AI for help in crafting their CVs. This shift has made it increasingly challenging for both job seekers and companies to connect at the entry level. A Manchester startup, Urfuture, is stepping in to address this problem with its innovative hiring tools.
Recently, Urfuture successfully secured £1.7 million in seed funding, led by River Capital. Additional support came from various investors, including the SyndicateRoom Access Fund, Manchester Angels, and several angel investors focused on the sector.
Founded in 2023 by Tom Keighley, Jayel Williams, and Holly Hobbs, Urfuture is developing new tools designed to move beyond traditional CVs. Their platform adopts a social-first approach catered to Gen Z and employs a unique behavioral science matching algorithm. This aims to identify motivated candidates while helping companies minimize bias in their hiring processes.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), about 957,000 young people in the UK, aged 16 to 24, were not in education, employment, or training by late 2025, accounting for 12.8% of this age group. Notably, nearly half of these job seekers are using AI tools to draft or refine their CVs, which often leads to a flood of repetitive and low-quality applications for employers.
“Urfuture is well-positioned to bridge this gap, offering a scalable and engaging solution that helps young people explore entry-level jobs, apprenticeships, and career opportunities,” said David Walters, Investment Director at River Capital.
Since its launch in late 2025, Urfuture’s app has been downloaded over 50,000 times and has received more than 160 million views on social media. It has also collected 2.4 million behavioral data points to enhance its matching engine, making it one of the quickest-growing datasets for entry-level hiring in the UK.
Prominent companies like Tesco, British Airways, and Scottish Power Electricity North West are already using the platform to find and evaluate early-career talent. Preliminary results show marked improvements in candidate diversity, with one organization reporting an increase in diverse applicants from 8% to 47%.
Keighley remarked, “We’re rethinking the hiring process from the ground up by combining social distribution, behavioral science, and AI to create a fairer and more effective way for young people to connect with job opportunities. We aspire to be the first step toward employment for the next generation.”
Urfuture has also collaborated with notable figures such as Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves to engage young people on a larger scale, leveraging Urfuture’s social media presence.
The recent funding will help accelerate product development, including a new white-label behavioral profiling and screening tool designed to streamline the hiring process for employers. The company also plans to expand its sales, marketing, and engineering teams, as well as launch a self-serve product for small and medium-sized businesses, extending access beyond just large enterprises.
