NEET Trends Analysis (2025 Q1): Qualification levels, ethnicity and disability

Overview

The Office for National Statistics’ latest data shows that the total number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) across the UK is 923,000.

Despite the number of young people who are NEET decreasing slightly, it remains stubbornly high. We look at Labour Force Survey data in more detail to explore the trends and key drivers.

This summary presents the insights from our analysis.

Key findings

Both increased unemployment and economic inactivity have driven the rise in NEET figures since 2021. In particular, analysis of the latest data reveals the persistent nature of this problem with many young people now having been in search of work or training for over a year.

Further insights:

• The rise in economic inactivity is mostly due to ill health, which is mostly driven by ill mental health.
• Around one in four (25.9%) unemployed young people not in education or training have been looking for work for over a year.
• High NEET rates for Black young people is driven by high unemployment.
• Around half of NEET young people have a disability.
• Physical health not makes up a smaller share of main health issues for disabled NEETs.

Data sources

We have looked at multiple periods of micro data from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey, available from the UK Data Service. View the most recent.