Co-founded in 2023 by us at Nestlé Professional, Choose Hospitality, and CareerScope, Springboard, The Choose Hospitality Pledge brings together education and business to galvanise change and take steps to encourage more young people to consider a career in the hospitality sector.
Why Choose Hospitality?
There are 3.5 million people* working in the hospitality industry.
The skills you learn in a hospitality-based role are transferable on a global scale.
There is a lot of development opportunities with plenty of room to move up the ladder.
Opportunities all around the world within the sector.
Flexible work hours in comparison to 9-5 work.
We developed the pledge following research we conducted into perceptions of young people on the hospitality industry. The research, available in our insight report, Opening Doors: Improving hospitality career perceptions among young people, revealed that although some young job seekers are interested in the industry, many are unaware of the breadth of roles and progression opportunities available. With exposure limited to less ‘skilled’ roles in hospitality, this could explain why many young people view it as a ‘back-up career’, with long hours and hard work.
Yet right now there are a huge number of skilled worker vacancies in hospitality, providing significant opportunities for a fantastic career in the industry.
To address this, the pledge encourages hospitality businesses and rising industry stars to put themselves forward as industry ambassadors. Hospitality leaders involved including Sodexo, Compass, Whitbread, Elior and PACE, plus industry organisations such as Bridging the Skills Gap and the Institute of Hospitality have all been involved to date. Ambassadors share their own hospitality stories with students to help them understand the industry's varied jobs and progression opportunities.
Since launching the Choose Hospitality Pledge, we’ve engaged with over 50 schools across the UK and met over 3,000 students.
Past Events
Since launching in 2023 we've run a variety of events with students across the breadth of the UK.
In 2024 we partnered with Sodexo Live to host events in their venues. Since then we’ve held events at Newcastle United’s St. James’ Park, Brighton & Hove Albion FC’s American Express Stadium and Everton FC’s Goodison Park.
In October 2025 we collaborated with North Yorkshire Business and Education Partnership to run a City of York takeover, visiting 8 secondary schools across two weeks.
