Why place matters: building a youth employment system that works for every community

With the Chancellor outlining a clear direction of travel towards greater devolution at the Autumn Budget, our latest blog explores why place matters for youth employment systems. Drawing on new research into local funding flows and our place-based programmes, we examine how funding, collaboration and evidence can improve opportunities for young people across England.

Where a young person grows up can significantly affect their chances of finding good work.  

Differences in local economies, transport connections, employer opportunities and access to support shape young people’s pathways into employment. For those facing disadvantage, fragmented services and a lack of joined-up support can create additional barriers. 

The Chancellor’s Autumn Budget speech signals a further move towards greater devolution, echoing the findings of Alan Milburn’s Interim Young People and Work Report on the importance of place. This creates an opportunity to rethink how youth employment support is funded, designed and delivered.  

But greater local responsibility alone will not guarantee better outcomes. Our research and programmes show that local partners need the resources, flexibility and evidence to respond to the challenges facing young people in their communities, alongside shared priorities, objectives and ways of measuring success. 

Understanding how funding works locally

Research commissioned by Youth Futures Foundation from the University of Birmingham’s City-Region Economic Development Institute (City-REDI) examines funding for youth employment and skills across 10 areas in England where we have previously established or currently run Connected Futures place-based partnerships, with a particular focus on marginalised young people aged 14 – 24. 

Conducted between 2023 and 2025, researchers drew on almost 60 funding sources and interviews with local stakeholders. The resulting report, Local funding flows for youth employment and skills, revealed a complex and fragmented funding landscape. 

Funding comes from multiple national, regional and local sources, each with different priorities, eligibility requirements and reporting expectations. This can create a patchwork of services that don’t always connect, leaving young people to navigate a disjointed system despite organisations’ commitment to supporting them. Short-term funding and limited capacity can further constrain collaboration and longer-term planning. 

Crucially, the research also highlights how these challenges vary between places. Areas without combined authorities may have fewer opportunities to influence funding decisions, while differences between urban and rural economies create distinct pressures. 

The message is clear: a funding system that does not sufficiently reflect local circumstances risks reinforcing the very inequalities it is intended to address. 

Creating the conditions for joined-up support

Funding arrangements do more than determine where resources go; when designed well, they can encourage the right behaviours across the local system. They influence how organisations work together, what they prioritise and where they invest their time and capacity.

Local partners highlighted that funder requirements, rather than local priorities, can determine what gets measured. Where success is defined primarily through short-term outputs, organisations may be incentivised to focus on individual targets rather than longer-term, shared outcomes. This can make it harder for organisations to align around common objectives and deliver coordinated, person-centred support for young people. 

The research identifies opportunities to improve local youth employment systems through longer-term, more flexible funding, simpler processes, stronger collaboration and a greater focus on meaningful outcomes. Young people also need a voice in decisions about the support available to them, helping ensure services reflect their experiences and priorities. 

As devolution opens up opportunities for more decisions to be made locally, effective place-based approaches will require more than flexibility. They depend on strong partnerships, a shared understanding of local challenges and evidence about how improvements can be achieved and sustained. 

For policymakers and funders, this means considering not only where resources are directed, but how funding enables organisations to work together, adapt to local needs and achieve shared outcomes that go beyond contract deliverables.

Putting place-based systems change approaches into practice

This thinking is central to Youth Futures Foundation’s Connected Futures programme, which brings together cross-sector partnerships in five areas of England to understand the barriers young people face and develop more coordinated approaches to improving employment outcomes. By examining the relationships, policies, practices and power dynamics that shape these barriers, the programme seeks to strengthen collaboration across local systems and understand how effective support can be sustained and scaled. 

Working alongside young people, employers, local authorities and community organisations, partnerships have developed and are testing solutions informed by local evidence and lived experience. 

For example, in Blackpool, partners are working to prevent young people from becoming not in education, employment or training (NEET) by strengthening pathways from school to work, connecting schools, employers and support services, and developing a shared understanding of the needs of NEET young people. This includes improving data sharing and data-informed decision-making to support earlier intervention, while embedding young people’s voices in the local system. 

In Lewisham, the youth-designed Elevate 100 initiative brings employment, housing and mental health support together in one accessible location, reflecting the interconnected challenges young people can face and the importance of placing their experiences at the heart of service design. 

Connected Futures is also building evidence about how local youth employment systems operate, adapt and improve over time. Through evaluation and learning partnerships, we are developing a better understanding of how change happens on the ground, how local partnerships contribute and why approaches may differ between places. 

Our funding flows research adds to this learning, highlighting how funding arrangements can enable or constrain local organisations’ ability to deliver coordinated support.

Turning local insight into lasting change

Although we await more information on the Government’s shift towards devolution, this provides an opportunity to move beyond disconnected, short-term funding towards approaches that better reflect local priorities and support lasting collaboration. 

Realising that opportunity will require more than shifting responsibilities. Local organisations need the capacity to respond to their communities, partnerships need the conditions to work towards shared goals, and policymakers need evidence about what works in different places. 

By combining local insight, sustainable funding, meaningful partnerships and robust evidence, we can help build a youth employment system that responds to the needs of different communities and improves opportunities for young people across England.

Read our new report, Local funding flows for youth employment and skills, and explore how Connected Futures is supporting place-based change across England.