This Friday, 27 February (5pm–8pm), UK CareerQuest returns to Dugdale Arts Centre in Enfield Town — at a time when rising youth unemployment demands not just action, but learning.
Across the UK, youth unemployment is climbing again, with hundreds of thousands of young people currently out of work and London rates sitting above the national average. Locally, too many young people remain not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET), facing structural barriers that are persistent and often deeply discouraging.
In that context, CareerQuest is not just an event. It is part of a wider, community-led experiment in how Enfield responds.
Previously featured in Enfield Dispatch on LocalMotion Pages in November 2025 and February 2026, founders Warren Campbell and Ebony Bain launched CareerQuest to go beyond the traditional jobs fair model. Their vision combines practical career advice, inspiration, networking, CV reviews, employer access and representation — rooted in lived experience and local relationships.
When CareerQuest last filled Dugdale Arts Centre, 37 CVs were reviewed and nine job offers were made on the day. That tangible impact matters. But for LocalMotion Enfield, something else matters just as much: what we are learning together.
LocalMotion Enfield is not simply a supporter of initiatives like CareerQuest — it is a learning initiative. Our focus is iterative learning: communities trying new approaches, reflecting honestly on what works and what doesn’t, and applying that learning to shape future action.
CareerQuest forms part of that shared experimentation.
- What happens when career support is led by local entrepreneurs who understand the borough’s realities?
- What changes when representation is intentional and visible?
- What difference does relational, confidence-building support make compared to transactional job fairs?
These are not abstract questions. They are questions we are exploring together — founders, volunteers, attendees, employers and community networks. Events like CareerQuest show that when the community leads, opportunities grow. It’s about more than jobs — it’s about building confident futures for everyone in our borough.
That learning does not sit in isolation. It feeds into LocalMotion’s wider work: prioritising youth unemployment, building a network of networks, strengthening lived-experience leadership, and experimenting with new models across employment, disability inclusion, arts and culture, youth provision and homelessness prevention.
CareerQuest is one piece of that ecosystem — a live, practical experiment in what community-powered employment support can look like.
At a time when traditional routes into stable work feel increasingly uncertain, Enfield is not waiting passively for national solutions. Instead, local people are designing, testing and refining approaches together.
Friday’s event is another opportunity not only to access jobs and guidance — but to deepen our shared learning about how opportunity is built in this borough.
Because the future of employment in Enfield will not be delivered to us.
It will be learned into being — together.
UK CareerQuest
Friday 27 February
5pm–8pm
Dugdale Arts Centre, Enfield Town
Register via Eventbrite.
Photo of Warren Campbell and Ebony Bain by Kai Campbell of KaiImages