Annual Review – 2023 highlights

Our year in numbers

How we make a difference

Getting young people on a successful and rewarding path to work is an essential first step in their long-term wellbeing, and key to our country’s prosperity.

Highlights from 2023 include launching our Youth Employment Toolkit and our Data Dashboard to make high-quality evidence visible and accessible to decision makers.

We published 27 research and evaluation papers, building our understanding of the barriers to employment facing marginalised young people. These included our Discrimination and Work report, which reflected the views of 3,250 young people from ethnic minority backgrounds, and research exploring risk factors associated with young people becoming NEET.

We launched our first randomised controlled trial with 1625 Independent People, as well as our first employer and partnerships strategy which is already building a huge amount of momentum and influence in this space.

We continued to deliver our flagship Connected Futures programme and launched Building Futures, a £15 million early NEET prevention pilot programme.

We grew our team across our three locations in London, Birmingham and Leeds, and welcomed new board and committee members with a breadth of skills and experience.

We also welcomed our second cohort of Future Voices Group ambassadors, whose lived experience and perspectives are crucial to our success.

Looking ahead

Across 2024 we will continue to build on the strong foundation we have laid in 2023.

As we deliver the final year of our current strategy our focus includes:

• growing our knowledge of barriers faced by specific groups of young people
• testing interventions with employers
• evolving our evidence tools
• engaging and influencing key actors who can make change happen
• defining our next corporate strategy