Rail Industry Social Mobility Programme

Where you grew up, the school you went to, your family situation, and whether you’ve had opportunities to start again after setbacks all shape the chances you have. Social mobility is about making sure that someone’s background does not limit their future.

The Rail Industry Social Mobility Programme will make rail a route to progress - changing lives by opening opportunities for individuals and communities across the country, ensuring no-one gets left behind.

Our Rail Industry Social Mobility Programme is working across the industry to widen access to rail careers, and ensuring that background is never a barrier to opportunity.

This programme is co-sponsored by Steve White, Managing Director at Southeastern and Paul Rutter, Route Director, East Coast at Network Rail, and chaired by Navleen Kalra, People Director, Transformation and Inclusion, Network Rail.

Our ambition is to impact 5,000 lives a year through:

• Creating 2,000 meaningful engagements for students from less advantaged communities annually through outreach.

• Improving representation of those from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds within the rail workforce by 1,000 annually.

• Supporting 1,500 people and colleagues from less advantaged backgrounds to start apprenticeship schemes annually.

• Supporting 500 colleagues from less advantaged backgrounds with career progression tools annually.

  
  

Our structure

To help us on this journey, we are structured into three key groups who are driving forward the changes we want to see.

• Our Rail Industry Social Mobility Steering Group – senior industry leaders who advocate for change, provide thought leadership and help remove barriers to our success.

• Rail Industry Social Mobility Working group – industry subject matter experts, who deliver initiatives supporting social mobility, create plans to scale up our progress, identify barriers and develop solutions to enable social mobility.

• Beyond Barriers – a community of rail industry colleagues from less advantaged backgrounds and allies, who provide a safe space for colleagues to talk about shared challenges and advocate for industry change by representing their members’ needs.

  
  

Across the programme, our work falls into 5 main areas:

Achievements so far

• Ran two industry-wide, week-long work experience programmes, targeting schools that fall above the national average for pupil premium in Birmingham. In total 40 young people gained improved access to career opportunities and understanding the industry.

• Officially launched our pre-apprenticeship pathway for the Level 3 rail engineering technician apprenticeship, aimed at young people seeking education or training opportunities (NEETs). The pilot is taking place in Enfield London which is an area with great diversity and high deprivation rates.

• Delivered ‘Next Stop – Your Future’ industry-wide career development programme in 2024, including people from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds. One third of participants made career progression moves. A second cohort of ‘Next Stop – Your Future’ is taking place in 2026 including people from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds with participants already providing positive feedback about the programme.

• Beyond Barriers successfully delivered the first industry event marking Social Mobility Day in collaboration with Rail Unites for Inclusion, with the event marking a recognition of this challenge for the industry. With 50 in person attendees and 80 virtual, feedback was overwhelmingly positive. A leadership team is in place and plans for the year ahead are developed. The network now has over 300 members across 50 rail industry organisations.

Find out more about Beyond Barriers below:

Follow progress on LinkedIn >>>

Become a member >>>

On the 10 June 2026, the Industry Social Mobility Programme was launched at the Academy of WM Trains. One of our Co-Chairs for Rail Unites for Inclusion - Apeksha Naik organised the event with her fellow Co-Chair for the Industry Social Mobility Working Group - Faizza Rumani. 50 people including Senior Leaders and 7 'Magnificent Partners' were at the launch and they took a West Midlands Railway 'Social mobity train' from Birmingham New Street to Birmingham International where many went onto volunteer at the Big Bang Fair, one of the UK's largest science and engineering events for young people. Find out more about the launch here - Rail industry unites to champion social mobility as Great British Railways edges closer

Check out Apeksha's LinkedIn post about the launch event here