#WorkWithMe One Year On

This week marks the first anniversary of the launch of #WorkWithMe, where together with Scope, we committed to helping a million disabled people get into and stay in work by the end of 2020. A year on, I’d like to share what we have achieved but first, here is a reminder of the scale of the challenge we are facing:

• 13.9 million disabled people in the UK
• 7.2 million disabled people in the UK are of working age
• 3.6 million of working age disabled people are not in work
• 74% of disabled people have lost out on a job due to their impairment

So far, we have supported 80,000 disabled people (on track for our 2018 sub-target of 100,000) through the digital service Support to Work and Scope has received overwhelmingly positive feedback about this service. As the service scales up next year, we will be well on our way to helping even more people.

As well as launching Support to Work, we have held events for big businesses to discuss disability at work and in September, donated our Southampton FC shirt sponsorship to highlight disability equality and relaunch Scope’s new brand identity. We’ve also taken action to continue to transform our own workplace.

We are committed to removing barriers and tackling the perception of disability in the workplace. But that’s not the whole story. Across the business there are countless examples of all of Virgin Media employees becoming disability game changers. Such as the team of 35 fundraisers, who took part in the Royal Parks Half Marathon at the weekend – our biggest ever fundraising team.

I’m very proud of the impact our work with Scope is having. We’re transforming lives and doing more good with digital.