The youth employment challenge & opportunity

The challenge

Across the UK, the proportion of young people not in education, employment or training remains consistently high.

The challenge is even greater for the most marginalised young people, who face serious systemic barriers to finding and keeping good work.

Breaking this cycle requires understanding of what works to improve youth skills, employment and job quality. But there is limited high-quality evidence to support effective action.

Read the report

The opportunity

By building robust evidence, and using those insights to inform sustainable solutions, we can collectively change the narrative for our young people.

Reducing England’s NEET rate to that of the best performing OECD countries would ensure young people themselves are able to achieve a better future, and could also add £69 billion to the UK economy over the long term.

Our role

As the What Works Centre for youth employment, we:

Analyse and create high-quality evidence to boost awareness and understanding of the challenge and effective solutions
Translate and embed these into policy and practice, helping secure focus and resource to enable change across the system
Convene the Youth Employment Group, the UK’s largest coalition of sector experts
Ensure young people’s voices are heard

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Working in partnership

Working towards a future where every young person can achieve good work requires collective effort. Visit our audience hubs to find tailored information for how you can play a role in long-term change.

Public policymakers Employers Delivery organisations Researchers & evaluators