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. 

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

Useful tools

Ourinteractive online tools are designed to help you access and make use of the latest youth employment data and research.

Youth Employment Toolkit

Summarising evidence on effective youth employment interventions.

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Data Dashboard

The latest youth labour market data and our latest research.

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Youth employment system map

Interactive map of the youth employment system in England.

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Evidence and gap map

The world's largest interactive map of effective youth interventions.

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