You Decide
You choose the shift, the time and the place. You set your own pay rate — the employer chooses to accept it. You're paid the same day.
Your work. Your life. Your choice.
Why LIWO exists
The way we recruit is broken from the start. Interviews don't reflect anyone's ability to do a job. Then we ask someone to sign a 40-hour contract at a place they've never been, with a manager they've never spoken to.
When it falls apart — and it often does — they lose their benefits, their confidence, and any belief that work is even for them. The system calls that failure.
We call it rational self-protection. So we removed all of it.
One shift. Your terms. Then you decide.
How it works
No application pile. No waiting room. The ladder starts with one shift and only goes as far as you want.
No job board. No agency. A shift, a time and a rate.
You decide what your time is worth. Employers see your rate and choose to accept it — not the other way round.
Coffee shop, care home, kitchen, warehouse, office. The choice is the point.
Add an extra +£0.50/hr by opting into 24-hour confirmation and live location sharing until you arrive. Always your choice.
Turn up, do the work, meet real people. No promises made either way.
Payment lands the day you work. Your benefits are never at risk.
You rate the employer. They rate you. Every shift builds your verified work record.
No notice, no awkward conversation, no failure. Try somewhere else. Any sector, any kind of work.
Found the right place? Pick up more shifts. And when you're both ready — you already know it works.
The dream we're building
Five days, five choices. Every shift below is the kind of week LIWO makes possible, at a rate the worker set themselves.
Or don't. Work one day a week. Work five. Work none and come back next month. Your work life is your choice — that's not a slogan, it's how the platform is built.
See it live
From the moment an employer posts a shift to the second pay lands in the worker's account. All on their terms.
For employers
One shift is a trial for both sides. The employee tries the workplace; you try the employee. Neither carries any obligation beyond that shift — which is exactly why the matches that stick, stick.
When someone who's tried the job goes full-time, they've already chosen it. They show up, they perform, and they stay.
Why it's different
Rates are set by the worker and accepted by the employer. That single reversal changes the whole relationship.
LIWO invoices employers at cost. We take nothing from the worker's pay — we're infrastructure, not an agency.
Workers turn reliability into extra earnings — confirmation, live tracking, arrival notification. Their choice. Their extra £0.50/hr.
Monday care home. Tuesday kitchen. Wednesday office. No CV rewrite. No career bet. Just a shift.
The security of employed status without being locked to one employer, contract or sector.
LIWO runs on Orta — a live shift-matching platform already operating in UK care. Built and owned by our Manchester team.
The Numbers
946,000 young people are NEET right now. If just one in ten try a single 8-hour shift each week — here is what happens.
Who we partner with
LIWO doesn't replace existing employment infrastructure — it plugs directly into it. We're looking to partner with the organisations that are already trying to solve this problem, and give them a tool that actually works on the ground.
The natural home for the LIWO pilot. DWP already has the referral infrastructure, the Jobcentre network and the mandate to get young people back to work. We provide the platform they don't have to build.
Every region has different employment challenges. Because we built the platform ourselves in Manchester, we can adapt it around local authority requirements — not the other way round.
LIWO needs the trust networks that charities have already built. Youth organisations refer the young people. We give those young people somewhere to go — on their own terms, with zero risk.
We are a Manchester team of 21, including 7 developers who own every line of the platform. We don't ask partners to adopt a product — we build around what you need. No vendor, no licence fees, no waiting. If you are working on youth unemployment from any angle, we want to talk to you.
Start a conversationFor government & partners
Over a million young people in the UK are not in education, employment or training. Most aren't unwilling — they're blocked by the interview, the contract, and the fear of losing benefits.
LIWO is national employment infrastructure that removes all three. We call it Try Before You Apply: a real, paid, commitment-free shift as the first step into work.
We are seeking a National Unemployment Pilot in partnership with DWP and Jobcentres. We are not asking for funding to build something new — we are asking government to point its most disengaged young people toward a system that already works.
Talk to us about a First Shift Pilot