adventures of a… GAME Changer

Hairdressing gave Kyle Castille the opportunity he couldn’t find in mainstream education. Here’s how he’s turning his own setbacks into opportunities for the next generation…

“School wasn’t for me at all,” Kyle Castille doesn’t hesitate to tell us when we catch up about his career. In fact, long before he was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, he knew he learned differently and education wasn’t where he belonged. Instead, it was Saturdays spent in his uncle’s salon at 12 years old. It wasn’t long before his school recognised he was thriving there far more than in the classroom, and by Year 9, Kyle was studying hairdressing full-time at college alongside his GCSEs, leaving school already qualified before completing his Level 3. Looking back, he credits his teachers. “They recognised school wasn’t an enjoyable place for me,” he says. “I was very lucky I had teachers that didn’t give up on me.”

At 16, Kyle left home, worked in a local salon, and before long had boarded a one-way flight to Gran Canaria with just £200 in his pocket. “It was literally major life milestones all at once,” he laughs.

After returning to the UK, Kyle opened his first salon only to lose everything following a relationship breakdown. A brief spell working for the ambulance service helped him save enough money to start over, convincing a landlord to let him rent an existing salon despite having no deposit. “I promised I’d make it work,” he tells us. “I even slept at the salon at times because I was so determined!”

Just as the business began to find its feet, the building was unexpectedly earmarked for redevelopment, forcing Kyle and his team to relocate almost overnight. Friends, clients and family rallied together to move the salon, reopening just 24 hours later in a bigger premises that would eventually allow the business to grow.

It was there that Kyle’s career took an unexpected turn. After meeting a young girl struggling with education and severe mental health challenges, he began navigating the process of creating an alternative learning pathway within his salon. That experience inspired him to train as a teacher himself. “I looked at where the industry was going and realised there was a gap,” he explains.

Today, Kyle has a 42-chair salon with a team of 42, many of whom either returned to the industry after time away or struggled in traditional education before finding a place in hairdressing. Last year, the business surpassed £1 million turnover. Yet for Kyle, the numbers aren’t the biggest achievement. “I’ve changed people’s lives and they’ve changed mine,” he says. “It all came from that one girl – she’s still my biggest inspiration.”

Alongside salon life, Kyle has also built a big audience on social media through posting authentic content. “I thought, if I was looking for someone to follow, I’d want someone who’s just being themselves,” he says.

But Kyle still spends most of his week behind the chair. Every morning starts with a meeting with his management team before supporting the salon’s self-employed junior stylists, helping them develop not only technical ability but confidence, customer service and business skills. “We’re not just selling hair, we’re selling a feeling.”

Of course, the journey hasn’t been without challenges. Kyle admits that feeling like an outsider within the industry has often been difficult, particularly coming from a working-class background and never feeling the need to fit a particular mould. Yet he believes those experiences have shaped the culture he’s created inside his own salon. “It’s about inspiring people who’ve been told they’re not enough all their life,” he says.

His advice to the next generation? “Nobody can do you better than you,” he says. “That’s your golden ticket to success.”

As for what’s next, Kyle has no plans to slow down. Alongside recently launching his extensions brand CAST, he’s working to establish a recognised qualification pathway for self-employed junior stylists – one that teaches not only technical skills but business, finance and work-life balance too. “We’re giving hairdressers the tools to build careers on their own terms.” It feels like a fitting next chapter for someone who’s spent his entire career rewriting the rules.