Months of planning in the making, on the morning of 30 October 2025 we delivered AMS’s first Social Impact Summit in partnership with LinkedIn, titled ‘The Future of Work is Skills-First, Creating Opportunity and Social Impact’.

Attended by 100+ businesses leaders including Chief Human Resources Officers, Chief People Officers, Directors and Heads of TA, DEI and ESG, together with AMS Skills Creation and members of our DEI Alliance, we explored how skills-first hiring and social impact strategies can uncover hidden talent and unlock meaningful employment for individuals and communities often overlooked in traditional hiring.

With Tim Campbell MBE energising the room as host, and a warm welcome from AMS Chair & Founder Rosaleen Blair CBE, the event was set to be a success – but it surpassed all expectations, inspiring changemakers in the room to take accountability, collaborate and innovate to drive real change.

💡 Key Themes and Insights

🔑 Skills are the new currency 

Janine Chamberlin, UK Country Manager at LinkedIn, opened the Summit with a compelling keynote, sharing how skills-first hiring can democratise access to opportunity. Interviewed by Miriam Fearon, Global LinkedIn Customer Success Manager, Janine revealed:

  • Skills-based hiring can expand candidate pools by 6.1x across occupations – meaningfully increasing who gets considered

  • Women are less likely to apply for new roles, and are 26% less likely to ask for a referral – but are generally more successful when they do apply

  • Skills-based approaches create 6% greater expansion of access for those without bachelor’s degrees vs degree holders

“It doesn’t matter what your work title was five years ago, what matters are the skills that you bring into the workplace.” 

– Janine Chamberlin, UK Country Manager, LinkedIn

🛠️ Skills-First Hiring for Social Impact: Practical Strategies

Our first panel explored how organisations are embedding inclusive hiring and social impact into their talent strategies.

  • David Ramsey, Head of Workforce Strategy (Deals) at PwC shared how PwC are leading the charge with a skills-first hiring programme in early careers hiring. He highlighted that driving social change isn’t something companies and industries can pick up and put down; it is imperative to success and clients know when the commitment is genuine. Not all individuals understand the value they can add in the world of work and it’s our job to help those individuals recognise the talent they have.

  • Kike Agoro, Founder of BYP Network, emphasised the power of mentoring and sponsorship for underrepresented talent, noting that the more you sponsor the more you convert. She also shared the importance of intersectional partnerships—highlighting AMS’s DEI Alliance and collaborators like Evenbreak, 55/Redefined, auticon, myGwork, Recruit for Spouses, and Bridge of Hope Careers.

  • Joanne Conway, Head of Inclusion & Culture at DLA Piper, unpacked her doctoral research on how race, gender, and class shape access to opportunity. She shared that young people from professional backgrounds are still more likely to gain Early Careers opportunities, and only 5% of both graduates and apprentices are eligible for free school meals. So how do we change the dial on this? She challenged us to demystify the “unwritten rules” of the workplace to level the playing field.

  • Glen McGowan, Head of Talent at HSBC, reminded us that when opportunity is measured by skills—not status—mobility becomes a matter of effort, not inheritance. Inclusion, not blame, drives progress, and continuous learning is what keeps people, businesses, and economies relevant in a world of constant change.

🤖 The Future of Work: Skills, Social Impact and Technology

Our second panel looked ahead to how technology and outreach are reshaping the talent landscape.

  • Yeshua Carter, Founder of EY Outreach, spoke passionately about the importance of lived experiences —citing his work with those impacted by the justice system and the barriers they face, despite the resilience and capability they bring. He highlighted the need to form meaningful partnerships with charities and smaller social enterprises on the ground who are close to real challenges faced within our communities.
  • Sarah Atkinson, CEO of the Social Mobility Foundation, encouraged us to “copy each other’s homework”, learning from other entrants to the Social Mobility Foundation Employer Index, noting that the need for economic growth and access to the right skills for the future are the same problem. Those of us who work in recruitment know that applying early to roles gives you an early advantage for example – but those from under-resourced backgrounds may prefer to spend more time perfecting their CV and application. So why not encourage all candidates to apply early?
  • Looking ahead, Dr Alan Redman, Chief Science Officer at Clevry, warned that “AI is NOT skills-first,” predicting that critical thinking will be the most essential skill of the future, given human intervention is needed to appraise AI outputs. As an Occupational Psychologist, he joked that assessment is often perceived as the ‘evil barrier’ to social mobility, and challenged us to move beyond CVs (which are often riddled with bias) and interviews toward fair, robust assessments.
  • Chris Illingworth, Director, Solution Principal at Beamery, urged business leaders to think differently about hiring for the future— noting that many don’t always understand what skills are needed in their own organisation, and where diverse talent is. He offered an alternative perspective of breaking down roles into actual tasks employees perform, and mapping these to skills required.

💪 Key takeaways

  • Creating opportunity and social impact delivers commercial return – when we invest in these, it no longer becomes periphery CSR activity, but an economic one

  • Skills are the main currency – shifting from credentials to capabilities opens doors for overlooked talent, unlocks potential and fuels innovation

  • Collaboration matters in driving meaningful change – we can only make impact collaborating with each other, as well as with social enterprises (such as those in our Alliance), charities and tech enablers

➖ 

🎥 Stay tuned for video highlights and panel recordings in full to catch up on demand, produced by So-Motive. Special thanks to the team for the photography.

📩 Want to offer your reflections, share ideas to collaborate, or be added to our waitlist for future events? Reach out to us on [email protected].

Let’s keep the momentum going. The future of work is skills-first—and it starts now.