About Skills Shape

About Skills Shape

Skills Shape exists to help people who feel stuck, unsure, or lacking confidence about what comes next in relation to employment and progression.
Individuals don’t lack ability, they just haven’t had the right support, structure, tools or opportunity to explore what’s possible.

The Skills Shape Approach

The skills shape approach is simple and practical.

It focuses on:

  • Building confidence

  • Creating clarity and direction

  • Providing tools that actually help people take action

This isn’t about generic advice.

It’s about working with individuals to:

  • Understand where they are now

  • Explore what’s possible

  • Equip people with the tools to take realistic steps forward

Your Coach - Paul Baxter

  • 15 years working with Young People

  • Managed multiple employability contracts

  • Designed a range of employability programmes and sessions

  • 8 Years at Real Ideas, delivering Talent Match, Gamechanger, Compass and YEP employability programmes.

  • 7 years supporting young people at Doorway Charity promoting independent living skills, set up and delivered Job Wise employability programme.

  • Level 3 Information Advice and Guidance

  • Level 5 CIH Supporting Vulnerable People

  • Level 5 Leadership and Management

  • Full DBS


Why Skills Shape

Skills Shape brings together everything I’ve learned into a structured, coaching-led approach to employability support.

It’s for people who:

  • Feel stuck or unsure about what’s next

  • Lack confidence in themselves or the job market

  • Want to move forward but don’t know how

The focus is always the same:

Build confidence
Create direction and introduce employability tools
Take real steps forward

Let’s start with a conversation

If you’re unsure where to start, that’s completely normal.

A simple conversation can open up a world of opportunity.

Experience

Over the past 16 years, I’ve worked across housing support, employability programmes, and community initiatives, supporting young people and adults facing a wide range of employability challenges.

I’ve:

  • Delivered hundred of hours of 1:1 employability and group sessions

  • Designed and led employability programmes

  • Supported individuals into work, education, and training

  • Worked with people facing homelessness, mental health challenges, and long-term unemployment

  • Built relationships with organisations and employers to create real opportunities for young people

Most recently, I led employability and digital skills programmes at Liskeard Library for Real Ideas, supporting young people aged 16–25 to build confidence, develop skills, and move forward.

I have implemented and developed my employability support and programme design within a range of national government-funded programmes such as the YEP programme, Compass, Game Changer and Talent Match Youth Employment programmes, as well as delivering employability support for DWP.

The Turning Point

Like many young people, I followed a path without really questioning it.

At school, going to university was simply “what you did” especially if you stayed on to sixth form.
So I went, studied Business and Marketing, and graduated in 2008 with a degree.

I am lucky to have had this opportunity and very grateful, but soon after, reality hit.

I found myself looking for work with a degree, but very little experience, and no real confidence in how to present myself. Long applications, unfamiliar interviews, putting myself out there… it all felt distant and overwhelming.

It was a wake-up call.

Despite doing what I thought I was supposed to do, I didn’t feel prepared for the world of work.

Everything changed when I was offered part-time work at a homeless charity as a support worker back in 2009.

I began working with young people aged 16–25, supporting them to find and sustain accommodation, many facing complex challenges including mental health, addiction, criminal records, and long-term unemployment.

That experience shaped everything.

What stood out to me wasn’t just the barriers people faced; it was the potential they still had.

No matter their situation, there was always a way forward.

What was missing wasn’t ability.

It was:

  • Confidence

  • Direction

  • The right tools

  • And an opportunity to apply them

Contact us

Interested in working together? Fill out some info and we will be in touch shortly. We can’t wait to hear from you!