Practical opportunity3 min read
Ability is everywhere. Opportunity is not: what the figures show
In April to June 2025, 52.8% of disabled people in the UK were in work, against 82.5% of non-disabled people. What that gap shows and what the three routes do.
By IT’S POSSIBLE NOWPublished
In April to June 2025, 52.8% of disabled people aged 16 to 64 in the UK were in work, compared with 82.5% of non-disabled people. That is a gap of 29.7 percentage points, and the source is the Department for Work and Pensions. IT’S POSSIBLE NOW starts from the view that the skills and ideas are there, and that access is what makes the difference.
The figures
| Group, UK, April to June 2025 | In employment |
|---|---|
| Disabled people | 52.8% |
| Non-disabled people | 82.5% |
| Disability employment gap | 29.7 percentage points |
These come from The employment of disabled people 2025, an official statistics release that GOV.UK shows as updated on 24 March 2026. The release counts 5.5 million disabled people in employment and 10.4 million working-age people classed as disabled, which is nearly one in four of the working-age population.
What the figures leave out
The release covers people aged 16 to 64 and uses the government’s harmonised definition of disability, which follows the Equality Act 2010 core definition. Quarterly estimates are not seasonally adjusted. Compared with the same quarter in 2024, the rate fell by 0.2 percentage points and the gap widened by 1.1 percentage points, and DWP says neither change is statistically significant.
The statistics describe the gap. They do not explain why it exists, so the explanation below is IT’S POSSIBLE NOW’s own position and does not come from DWP.
Why access is the issue
The position is this: the skills and ideas are there. What makes the difference is access to premises, transport and equipment, access to an employer ready to make an adjustment, and access to a way into trading. A person can have the ability a job or a business needs and still be unable to reach it because of a barrier in a building, the trip to work, a piece of equipment, an employer’s practice or the way into trading.
That is the organisation’s proposition: “Ability is everywhere. Opportunity is not.” The problem it works on is access.
What the three routes do about access
| Access gap | Route | What the route does |
|---|---|---|
| A way into trading | BUILD | Practical routes into viable self-employment and enterprise |
| An employer ready to make an adjustment | WORK | Genuine paid employment, with the right adjustments and real chances to stay and progress |
| Barriers built into places, services and systems | SHAPE | People with lived experience are paid to find barriers and test the changes that remove them |
Premises, transport and equipment are handled in the second of the five steps on How it works: removing practical barriers, which covers access, equipment, transport, communication and adjustments. Where a disability or health condition creates an extra cost, government support such as Access to Work may already exist.
Measuring whether it leads anywhere
The DWP figure describes the UK as a whole. Results from IT’S POSSIBLE NOW itself will be reported against its own measures: paid starts, earnings and retention for WORK, customers and earned income for BUILD, and barriers found and changes adopted for SHAPE. Every result published comes with the method behind it and the limits of what it shows.
How we measure what happens next sets out the measures in full. If you want to take part in one of the routes, register your interest and say which one draws you.
Sources
- The employment of disabled people 2025 (DWP, GOV.UK) (read on 7 October 2026)
The routes this is about
A next step
Funders, hosts, employers and partners can start a conversation here.
Written by
IT’S POSSIBLE NOW
A UK social enterprise run as a Community Interest Company. Who is behind IT’S POSSIBLE NOW
