Published 17 July 2026, two days after the DWP reported that its Pathways to Work advisers have helped 100,000 disabled people and people with health conditions move closer to work.
If a disability or a long-term health condition has made looking for work feel like a door that keeps closing, there was some genuinely good news this week. There's also an honest next step the announcement doesn't cover, and it's the step that decides whether the good news reaches you.
What changed
On 15 July the Department for Work and Pensions said its Pathways to Work advisers have now helped around 100,000 disabled people and people with health conditions move closer to work. The advisers are free and voluntary, based in every Jobcentre across England, Scotland and Wales, and they sit inside a £3.5 billion plan that also includes Connect to Work and WorkWell.
The scale of the need is in the same release: 2.7 million people on Universal Credit are assessed as too sick to work, and more than 170,000 of them are aged 16 to 24. The government's own figures say people who go through the programme are 40% more likely to be in work two years later. Whatever you make of the wider welfare debate, "supporting someone instead of writing them off", in the Work and Pensions Secretary's words, is the right instinct.
The part the headline skips
Read the success story in that same announcement. Deborah, who is deaf and manages several long-term conditions, had been out of work for 16 years. What did the support actually involve? Help with her CV, and working out how to describe her transferable skills. Hold onto that detail. Even in a government press release about a jobs scheme, the thing standing between a capable person and a job was the application itself.
"Closer to work" is real progress. But closer isn't hired, and the distance between the two is almost always the CV, the form, and the screening software behind them. For a lot of disabled and health-affected applicants that stage is harder than it should be, for two reasons. Both have a fix.
Barrier one: writing it at all
For someone with dyslexia, a condition that makes reading a screen tiring, or anything that makes typing draining, the blank CV page is the barrier before the job even is. You know what you have done. Turning it into neat written prose, cold, on a screen, is a separate and unfair test.
That is exactly what TAILOR's accessibility features are built for, and they are free. Read-aloud reads your CV back so you can hear what is working. Voice dictation lets you speak your answers instead of typing them. An OpenDyslexic mode makes the text easier to track. No credit card needed, and none of the accessibility tools sit behind a paywall.
Barrier two: getting past the filters
Once it is written, every application meets three gates before a person reads it. The ATS scores how closely your CV mirrors the specific job ad. The recruiter gives the top third of the page about seven seconds. The hiring manager picks the handful that clearly match the day-to-day of the role. A general CV struggles at all three. Your adviser is right to help you name your transferable skills; the next move is to put those specific skills in the exact language each role is screening for.
What you can do this week
- Use the support for direction, own the application. A Pathways or Connect to Work adviser can help you find a plan and name your strengths. The CV that carries those strengths into each role is where you take control.
- If writing is the wall, do not type cold. Use a tool that reads your CV back and takes dictation, so getting it onto the page is not the thing that stops you.
- Tailor to the role, lead with something concrete. Swap "hard-working and reliable" for one specific thing you did and the result it got. That is what clears the filters.
If you want to see which of the three gates is costing you, the free CV Health Check scores yours in about 30 seconds, no sign-up needed to see your score and no credit card needed.
The system is finally leaning toward helping people instead of writing them off. The application is the part you can take into your own hands today.
Sources
- Department for Work and Pensions, 100,000 people closer to work thanks to Government support, 15 July 2026: 100,000 disabled people and people with health conditions moved closer to work by Pathways to Work advisers; part of a £3.5 billion plan including Connect to Work and WorkWell; 2.7 million people on Universal Credit assessed as too sick to work, over 170,000 of them aged 16 to 24; participants "40% more likely than non-participants to be in work after two years"; the Deborah case study, whose support included help with her CV and identifying transferable skills.