ABSTRACT Drawing on data from participatory research workshops with 16–18-year-olds from different educational settings, this article explores the orientations of young people towards future work, especially regarding technological change and digitalisation. Despite the future’s uncertainty, the young people involved in the study were hopeful that technological advances would create new opportunities and jobs. In the young people’s accounts, work is defined as an individual’s responsibility and a source of wellbeing in terms of social and economic wealth and meaningful life. Moreover, we identified in their accounts a powerful discourse which we named ‘responsibilisation for sustainable future of work’. Within this discourse, they presented a demand on human beings, including themselves, but especially those with skills and power, to secure the continuation of work as a form of meaningful social engagement for everyone. Considering these findings through such conceptualisations as epistemological fallacy and neoliberal entrepreneurial mindset, and acknowledging the current political, economic and ecological challenges to work as a provider of wellbeing, we contemplate possibilities for collective alternative visions of good life and citizenship, taking seriously the interconnectedness of wellbeing, meaningful life and sustainable social practices.