Finishing the Hospitality Skills Passport is worth pausing to appreciate. It is a proper programme, developed by UKHospitality, OCN London and the DWP, rolling out across 26 areas of England and Wales. Pilot schemes hit an 85% completion rate and 80% of people who completed the passport went on to find work in hospitality. That is a real result.
But here is the honest question nobody asks loudly enough: what happens after?
So the picture that emerges is this. Staff are more satisfied with their pay than they have been in years. They are still leaving. What they actually want is work that feels meaningful, a sense that they are growing and a life that is liveable outside the shifts. These are not things you can fix with a pay review.
