The Campaign

The 2026 National Year of Reading, led by National Literacy Trust and commissioned by the Department for Education, is once‑in‑a‑generation campaign that aims to transform the UK’s reading culture and engage new audiences nationwide.  A creative and high profile social marketing campaign, the National Year of Reading is mobilising schools, libraries, communities, publishers, charities, and businesses in a coordinated national effort to redefine reading for a new generation; inspiring new reading habits and tackling declining reading numbers.

Key elements of the National Year of Reading include:

• A nationwide consumer facing campaign combined with largescale mobilisation of national and local partners ‑facing campaign‑scale mobilisation of national and local partners
• An ambition to recruit 100,000 volunteers and activate communities across the UK to support reading engagement and access
• A strategic focus on redefining reading in a technology rich, AIdriven era, engaging children, young people and adults through innovative approaches and nontraditional partners such as tech platforms and the gaming industry‑rich, AI‑driven era, engaging children, young people and adults through innovative approaches and non‑traditional partners such as tech platforms and the gaming industry

Delivering a campaign of this scale to support such an ambitious campaign required the assembly of a high performing, multidisciplinary team, including a visionary Director capable of shaping strategy, driving cross sector partnerships, and leading a complex, high stakes national programme. Keen to ensure an efficient, effective, and inclusive recruitment hiring process, National Literacy Trust partnered with Charity People to recruit seven pivotal roles, ensuring the campaign launched with the leadership, expertise and capacity required for national impact.‑performing, multi‑disciplinary team‑sector partnerships, and leading a complex, high‑stakes national programme. Keen to ensure an efficient, effective, and inclusive recruitment hiring process,

Through targeted headhunting, deep sector insight, and inclusive recruitment practices, Charity People helped build the core team that would take the National Year of Reading from concept to delivery. This case study explores how that partnership strengthened the campaign internally and why working with a specialist agency can be transformational when delivering large‑scale national initiatives.

Our Impact

As an employee-owned recruitment specialist firmly rooted in the charity sector, we are committed to making every recruitment partnership a catalyst for meaningful impact.  We’re beyond proud that our recruitment partnership with National Literacy Trust directly supported the organisation’s ability to deliver a campaign of this size and complexity.

Impact highlights include:

• Charity People proactively headhunted the Director of the National Year of Reading, a role responsible for the entire campaign strategy, stakeholder management at the highest level, behaviour change leadership, fundraising oversight, and risk management. This position was pivotal in shaping the campaign and driving national collaboration across government, the public sector, civil society and business leaders‑change leadership, fundraising oversight, and risk management. This position was pivotal in shaping the campaign and driving national collaboration across government, the public sector, civil society and business leaders
• Charity People recruited six additional roles across engagement, partnerships, fundraising, and operations
• By recruiting the full team within deadline, Charity People enabled the NYR to move rapidly into strategic planning, partner onboarding and early programme development – all of which were critical to meeting fixed delivery milestones in 2026
• Through targeted headhunting and sector‑specific expertise, Charity People brought forward candidates with proven experience across skills explicitly required to achieve measurable impact, including of national behaviour change campaigns, and cross‑sector partnership working

In short, the right hires at the right moment accelerated the campaign’s momentum and strengthened its strategic direction.  This approach delivered significant internal impact, protecting wider organisational capacity and ensuring the NLT had a dedicated team in place, all galvanised behind one sole focus: leading a transformational national initiative.

Key outcomes:

• The newly appointed Director took over responsibility for strategy, stakeholder alignment, campaign risks and DfE engagement – freeing the CEO and senior leadership team up to focus on high‑level oversight rather than operational management
• With Charity People leading across the process, including all advertising, CV screening, pre-submission screening, shortlisting and interview arrangement, the team at NLT were enabled to focus on their roles without being over-burdened by recruitment processes during a tremendously busy time.  Across all seven roles Charity People were in contact with 100s of applicants, treating each with care and attention.  This is turn meant there was no detrimental impact on productivity internally for NLT teams; time spent interviewing was well utilised because we could guarantee that all candidates invited to interview had the required skills for their respective roles; and that the charity’s recruitment brand was protected and strengthened
• Working in partnership with Charity People meant that NLT was able to recruit for values as well as expertise, which supported the organisation’s mission‑led commitments to inclusion, community partnership and sector collaboration

Our aim wasn’t simply to fill roles – we were firm in our belief that our support should enhance organisational resilience and campaign readiness, which we achieved by running seven efficient and effective campaigns.

The Outcome

Working in partnership with Charity People was not only helpful, but critical, to the starting phases of National Year of Reading.

The value delivered by Charity People included:

• Access to deep sector networks, ensuring NLT reached exceptional talent across education, literacy, behaviour change, marketing, partnerships and leadership
• Targeted headhunting to secure a Campaign Director capable of navigating high‑level government relationships, cross‑sector partnerships and national programme delivery – an extremely rare and difficult‑to‑hire profile
• Ability to hire multiple specialist roles efficiently, ensuring consistent quality and meeting non‑negotiable campaign timelines
• A strong, inclusive candidate experience through Charity People’s communication approach and professionally designed candidate materials, created with our partner agency Oxygen
• Reduced risk for the NLT; with experts handling shortlisting, candidate assessment and sector benchmarking
• Freed capacity for internal staff, enabling NLT to focus on building campaign content, securing partners and preparing national‑level infrastructure

Ultimately, Charity People’s involvement ensured the National Year of Reading launched with the leadership, expertise and team cohesion required to deliver meaningful, measurable national impact.

“I have worked with the Charity People team for many years to recruit to key specialist roles, and their experience and understanding of our needs were really vital for this campaign to build an entirely new team on a tight turnaround to deliver the National Year of Reading. Their targeted headhunting and detailed candidate screening meant we were presented with an excellent field without having to draw on our existing team’s capacity at an incredibly busy time. However, they were also sensitive to the importance of our relationships with key stakeholders across the education, publishing and charity sectors, and the need to have an open and inclusive approach, and managed the balance of this perfectly. We could not have had the team in post when they were and delivering against campaign priorities without that support.”

Sam Brookes – National Literacy Trust