WORKWELL CAREERS
Careers in WorkWell
Understand WorkWell, how integrated work and health support is delivered, and the skills, roles and career opportunities emerging as the programme expands across England.
What is WorkWell?
WorkWell is an integrated work and health support service designed to provide early help for people whose health is making it difficult to stay in work or return to employment.
The service is voluntary and is available to eligible people whether they are in work or out of work and regardless of whether they receive benefits. Participants can enter WorkWell through routes including GPs and primary care, Jobcentre Plus, employers, other local services and self-referral.
WorkWell takes a holistic approach. Rather than looking only at someone's employment situation or health condition, it considers the wider factors affecting their ability to work and connects them with appropriate employment, health and community support.
Its emphasis on early intervention and prevention is particularly important: helping people address health-related barriers before they become further detached from the labour market.
How WorkWell Works
WorkWell provides relatively light-touch, personalised work and health support, with participants receiving an assessment of the barriers affecting their employment followed by an individual plan.
Support is based on the person's circumstances rather than a standard sequence of employment interventions.
Depending on local provision and individual need, this can include employment advice, workplace adjustment support, employer liaison, physiotherapy, mental health interventions and connections to wider local services. These can include housing, financial and debt advice, physical activity and other community support.
Where someone requires more intensive employment support than WorkWell is designed to provide, they can be connected with other appropriate services.
For practitioners, this makes understanding the wider local support system just as important as providing direct employment advice.
Who Does WorkWell Support?
WorkWell is aimed at people with disabilities or health conditions who are either in work or could move into work with the right support.
This includes people who may be struggling at work because of their health, people on sickness absence and people who have recently left employment or are experiencing health-related barriers to returning to work.
The programme is not limited to one type of health condition. During the pilot, mental health conditions were particularly prominent: almost half of recorded starts up to March 2026 identified a mental-health-related condition as their primary health barrier to work.
This means WorkWell practitioners can support people with a wide range of circumstances and need to understand how health, employment and wider social factors can interact.
Early Intervention and Prevention
The programme aims to provide support before health-related difficulties result in prolonged absence from work or long-term economic inactivity. The programme's evaluation describes early intervention as acting at the earliest possible point to help people stay in or return to work.
For someone who is already employed, this could mean identifying barriers that are making work difficult and exploring appropriate workplace support.
For someone who has recently left work, it can mean addressing employment and health barriers before they become increasingly difficult to overcome.
This preventative approach distinguishes WorkWell from programmes focused primarily on people who have already experienced lengthy periods outside the labour market.
Integrating Work and Health Support
WorkWell is built around the principle that employment and health should not be treated as completely separate issues.
Local WorkWell services bring together organisations including the NHS, local authorities, employment services and voluntary and community organisations to provide more joined-up support.
A participant may therefore need help with several interconnected issues. A health condition might affect their ability to perform their job, financial pressure may affect their wellbeing, or workplace difficulties may contribute to deteriorating health.
WorkWell practitioners need to understand the whole picture and help the participant access the right combination of support.
This creates roles where strong employment knowledge needs to be combined with person-centred assessment, partnership working and an understanding of health-related barriers to employment.
WorkWell in Practice
Day-to-day WorkWell delivery can involve assessing an individual's employment and health circumstances, agreeing goals and developing a personalised plan to address the barriers affecting work.
Practitioners may provide direct employment-related support while also connecting participants with specialist services available through the wider local system.
This makes navigation and coordination important parts of the service. Practitioners need to know what support exists locally, establish effective referral pathways and ensure participants do not simply get passed between disconnected organisations.
The work can also involve communication with employers where appropriate, particularly when workplace adjustments or other support could help somebody remain in employment.
Strong WorkWell practitioners therefore combine coaching, assessment, employment knowledge, partnership working and effective case management.
Local Delivery and Partnership Working
WorkWell is deliberately locally designed and delivered rather than operating as one identical national service.
The original phase was delivered through 15 Integrated Care Board areas, bringing together health, local government, employment services and other local partners. Local areas were given flexibility to develop support reflecting the needs of their populations.
That means the exact WorkWell delivery model, organisations involved and job titles can vary between locations.
For professionals working within WorkWell, effective partnership working is therefore particularly valuable. Roles can involve building relationships across NHS services, local authorities, Jobcentre Plus, employers, voluntary organisations and other community services.
The programme provides a good example of how careers in employability are increasingly extending beyond traditional employment-provider environments.
WorkWell Careers
As WorkWell develops, career opportunities can exist across frontline delivery, work and health integration, employer support, partnerships, service management and programme leadership.
Exact job titles vary because services are designed locally, but opportunities may include roles such as:
Work and Health Coach / Adviser
WorkWell Practitioner
Employment Adviser
Work and Health Navigator
Employer Engagement roles
Team Leader
Service Manager
Work and Health Integration roles
Partnership and Programme Management roles
Relevant experience can come from employability, health and wellbeing, occupational health, community services, employer engagement, local government and other person-centred support services.
Because WorkWell sits between several sectors, professionals who can operate confidently across organisational boundaries can be particularly valuable.
Skills for Working in WorkWell
There is no single career background required for every WorkWell role, but several skills are particularly transferable.
These include:
Person-centred coaching and assessment
Understanding barriers to employment
Case management and action planning
Health and wellbeing awareness
Employer engagement
Understanding workplace adjustments
Partnership and stakeholder working
Knowledge of local support services
Effective referral and signposting
Supporting people to remain in employment
For leadership roles, experience in service performance, partnership management, developing referral pathways, coaching teams and integrated service delivery can also be valuable.
Professionals coming from mainstream employability services may already have many of these capabilities. The key development is understanding how those skills are applied within an integrated work-and-health environment.
The Growth of WorkWell
WorkWell is moving from pilot delivery towards a much larger national role.
The original programme launched in October 2024 across 15 areas in England. Approximately 34,000 people started a WorkWell intervention during the pilot period through March 2026.
Following the pilot, the government has confirmed that WorkWell will continue in existing areas and expand across England. The expansion is backed by up to £259 million over three years and could support up to 250,000 people.
This expansion is particularly significant for the employability workforce because it strengthens the connection between employment, health and locally integrated services.
For professionals considering their future careers, experience in work-and-health integration, early intervention, employment retention and partnership working could therefore become increasingly valuable.
WorkWell should not be viewed simply as another traditional employment programme. Its expansion reflects a broader shift towards preventing people from leaving the labour market because of health problems and providing employment and health support through more integrated local systems.
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