This is a bit niche - jobs with accommodation and a sense of community

[ConnieAndBlyde]

So DS is currently on a gap year. He has a Uni place for next September but isn't really sold on the idea.

I'm musing about alternatives. What kind of job/career could he look into where he 'goes away from home' but is more than a job? Somewhere he'd live with others and have a peer group like you would at Uni.

At the moment all I can think of is the armed forces, and that's not really his bag. He could turn his hand to most things though and is pretty open minded.

Like I say, just musing. Please don't jump down my throat! All suggestions welcome. Especially anything niche and unusual!

Military

I worked at Gleneagles in my 20s. It had staff accommodation a bit like halls of residence. Individual en suite rooms with group kitchens and communal living spaces with a bar, staff shop etc. Was amazing. We all used to go on nights out to Glasgow and Edinburgh, plus you got fantastic discounts on all the activities there. 30 years ago now, so it may well have changed of course.

Working in private service. I was an estate manager but all staff were provided accommodation which included the gardeners, butlers, PAs, farm workers, maintenance staff (including full time joiners and decorators), gamekeepers, accountant etc… we all lived around the grounds in different places!

Disney cultural exchange or similar in other hospitality venues. Look at Yummy Jobs website.

Park ranger

This isn't exactly what you asked for, but DD was in a very similar position when finishing A, levels.
Uni appealed, but only for the leaving home / meeting people / new experiences.
At the same time she didn't have the confidence to just move away & get a job / find a flat share.

She ended up in a live in volunteering post living & working with other young adults with learning disabilities.
While of itself it wasn't a direct route to a career,
she's now based on the experience gone to uni to study a related subject with the aim of working in the field.

There's various places that offer similar schemes, she was at a L'Arche community (it's a religious organisation but you don't have to have a faith & DD definitely doesn't), but also looked at the Cyrenians working with homeless young people / addicts.
The standard deal seems to be accommodation & keep provided plus pocket money of around £70 a week.
Obviously can lead into careers around health, SALT, social work etc.

Very different, but if he's interested in an outdoors career organic farming & horticulture also has lots of traineeships based on living on site (usually again accommodation / keep + an allowance).
Tends to be a young industry & sociable while attracting it's fair share on quieter people who are happiest alone in a field!

Rig work is skilled and often dangerous, and doesn’t give continuous accommodation - when you’re off the rig you need to have somewhere else to go.

Rig work following the big disaster in the 80s is much harder to come by and training for it is expected to be at your expense.

When I was in my 20s I lived in a stud farm and we all lived in on-site flat shares of 2/3 of us and it was lovely. Physically very hard work thought

A friend of my OH's works on cruise ships - he started out at 19 because, much like your son, all his mates were going away to uni etc and it wasn't really his thing.

He started out as an entertainment officer / purser and has worked his way up to director level over the course of 20 years or so. He's now responsible for H&S across his company line and has an amazing life travelling all over the world (I think he does something like three months on / three months off - he does own a house where he lives when he's on leave). We see him occasionally if a ship he's on comes into port nearby!

Does that sound like something that would interest your son?