Getting to grips with local labour markets to drive change for young people: lessons from Connected Futures

Where a young person lives can have a profound impact on their employment prospects.

It shapes available opportunities and, in some places, good jobs feel out of reach. Understanding local labour markets is critical if we’re serious about addressing the UK’s persistent youth unemployment challenge.  

The Milburn Diagnostic Review recognises the youth employment challenge is national, but its impact is deeply local. Across England, factors such as poor health, demographic shifts, transport connectivity and access to work combine to shape young people’s prospects. The Government’s recent Rewiring the State Cabinet Statement proposes greater local responsibility for shaping skills pathways and employment support around the needs of young people and local economies. As powers move closer to places, local labour market intelligence will become increasingly important to effective decision-making and system design.  

Through our Connected Futures programme, local partnerships are tackling systems that too often create obstacles rather than pathways. Their collective action shows that while national reform matters, local insights reveal where and how to act.  

We commissioned Ipsos UK to unpack the specific local labour market challenges affecting young people in Connected Futures partnership areas. Alongside tailored reports for each partnership, we’ve published a national overview highlighting key data insights and offering a practical starting point for places looking to take a similar evidence-led approach. 

The national picture 

The analysis paints a challenging national picture, with several important trends shaping young people’s employment prospects in England: 

• Economic growth remains modest and geographically uneven, with significant regional differences in productivity and wages. 

• Since the pandemic, young people’s labour market outcomes have worsened, with lower employment, rising unemployment compared to pre-Covid decreasing trends, and continued increases in economic inactivity. 

• Lack of work experience, recruitment practices that rely on word-of-mouth and skills mismatches make it harder for those facing disadvantage to enter work. 

• Future demand is expected to favour higher-skilled workers, with most opportunities arising through workforce replacement rather than creation of entirely new jobs. 

Yet national trends only tell part of the story. 

Why local evidence matters 

Young people experience employment systems through the places where they live. Place-based approaches enable partners to use local insights and influence to respond to specific challenges in their communities.   

Across Connected Futures, local partnerships have been building collective ambition and fostering trusting relationships and shared accountability. Local leadership and meaningful co-production with young people have been central. Achieving lasting change is complex though, and being informed by relevant local evidence, unobscured by national averages, is a vital ingredient for success. Strategies must be informed by local conditions, not national benchmarks alone, particularly as places take on greater responsibility for skills and employment support. 

Ipsos’ analysis gave partnerships a deeper understanding of:  

• characteristics of their local labour market and young people’s education and employment outcomes  

• local opportunities, challenges and scale of need 

• employer perspectives and workforce demand 

• wider economic factors shaping youth employment in their area. 

Findings challenged some assumptions, while also validating what frontline organisations see every day.  

In places like Burnley and Hastings, for example, the analysis revealed relatively fewer local job opportunities, highlighting how regional and national averages can mask local realities. In Blackpool, evidence reinforced existing understanding, but also underlined the scale of the challenge, the importance of supporting progression into better-paid, sustainable roles and emerging demand in sectors like healthcare.