Youth Industry Network - Year 2

The F-List’s Youth Industry Network (YIN) is back for a second year — and we’re proud to be continuing our work supporting young female and gender-expansive creatives to build sustainable careers in music.

Funded by Youth Music’s Industry Connect programme, YIN Year 2 runs from June 2026 to May 2027. We’re working with 29 young people aged 18–25 who are under-represented in the music industries — not just as artists, but as event managers, promoters, marketers, content creators, and more. Because we know the music industry is far bigger than the stage.

Building on what we’ve started

Fourteen participants from Year 1 are continuing with us into a second year of deeper, more tailored support. Having spent the past year building community and confidence, they’re now ready to go further — working one-to-one with a mentor from The F-List’s extensive network whose own career aligns closely with their goals and specialism. Whether that’s pairing a young event manager with an established promoter, or a content creator with someone who’s built a brand from scratch, these mentoring relationships are designed to be genuinely useful.

Welcome to the new cohort

Alongside our returning participants, we’re recruiting 15 new young creatives across three UK locations. Like Year 1, we’re particularly keen to hear from people who haven’t studied music formally and are taking their first steps into an industry career — in any role, on or off the stage.

New participants will meet locally once a month to build peer networks, supported by group mentoring and access to a microgrant they can use however best supports their development — whether that’s attending an industry event, buying equipment, or taking a short course. The decisions are theirs.

Shared learning across both strands

All 29 participants will have access to eight online masterclasses covering the skills that matter most for building a portfolio career: monetisation, marketing, social media, goal-setting, and more. The topics aren’t decided in advance — they’re shaped by participants themselves.

Co-creation at the heart of everything

YIN isn’t something we deliver to young people — it’s something we build with them. Returning participants help shape their own mentoring matches. New participants co-design their local meet-ups and decide how microgrants are spent. Both cohorts influence the masterclass programme. We stay agile and responsive throughout, because no two people’s career journeys look the same.

If you’re a young female or gender-expansive creative aged 18–25 who wants to build a real, sustainable future in music — we’d love to hear from you. 
Deadline 30th May, please apply here:https://tinyurl.com/mshbf6f3