A former sewage worker with no qualifications has become a high-flying city businessman after setting up a jobseeking website aimed exclusively at unskilled young people.

David Brett had the idea for his company Next Generation Jobs while working as a sewer engineer shortly after a knee injury meant he was discharged from the Royal Marines.

Having struggled to find work in the past, the former Charles Dickens School pupil realised there was a gap in the market for a jobsite aimed at young people “looking for anything going”.

After receiving 3,500 job applications during a test week over the festive period, he officially launched the site this month and is already adding more than 300 vacancies a week.

He has now moved to London from his Margate home to be closer to the mentoring sessions he receives from Rockstar Youth, a service for young entrepreneurs.

Mr Brett, 25, said: “From being covered in poo I have gone to working in a suit in London.

“You don’t need anything to get your own business up and running. You just need sheer motivation. You don’t need qualifications. It’s just determination.”

Business success has not been without its setbacks. Having received a start up loan early last year, Mr Brett promptly paid a developer to design a website.

However the outcome was not fit for purpose and he found himself having spend £2,000 on a product that did not work, living in near poverty in a flat in Edgar Road, Cliftonville, which he could barely afford.

He said: “I was really down. I was living on £2 a week, eating 10p noodles and Space Raiders but I picked myself up and kept going.

“My motto is ‘no experience, no problem’. You just need to keep going. You will get there in the end.”

Having brainstormed the idea for his business on a piece of paper – which he has still got – Mr Brett believes his company will be a success because of his first hand experience of looking for a job.

The website lists jobs dedicated exclusively to 16 to 25 year olds and is focussed on low-skilled work requiring no more than two years’ experience.

Mr Brett said: “I have been laid off three times in my life. I know exactly how hard it is.

“When I’ve been out of work before, I’ve found that when I went on job websites, I would put in ‘salary below £15,000’ and I would still get managing director jobs coming up, which I knew I had no chance of getting.

“On my site, all you have got to do is put in your location and jobs come up requiring no more than two years’ experience, so you have got a chance of getting any job on there.

“Because I have been there and seen how it is on the other side, I know exactly what jobseekers are looking for.

“It is a site for young people looking for anything going.”

Visit www.nextgenerationjobs.co.uk.