Paid temporary work experience delivered as part of an active labour market programme to young people aged 16 to 24 may increase participation in higher education and can be part of a pathway to longer-term employment.
Last updated: 26 August 2026
Negative impact
Consolidating
Low/no impact
Emerging
Low/no impact
Emerging
Moderate - likely to require some intense, complex or specific resource needs for effective delivery
For every 100 young people who are NEET and take part in paid temporary work experience as a component of a targeted youth employment intervention, around 1 additional young person is in employment 12 to 24 months later compared to similar young people who did not take part. This component could increase recent employment by around 1 percentage points.
Headline insights about this component based on current high-quality evidence, where paid temporary work experience has been delivered as part of an active labour market programme to young people aged 16 to 24.
Positive
Paid work experience may have a moderately positive impact on young people's participation in a bachelor’s degree or equivalent level of study.
What drives it
The negative impact on school completion may reflect increased engagement with or interest in employment as an outcome of engaging in paid work experience.
Longer-term
In the long-term paid temporary work experience may have more positive impacts because of its association with participation in higher education.
The research suggests that the median impact of paid temporary work experience on recent employment (12-24 months from the start of the intervention) is likely to be small but positive.
Young people are offered short-term roles with employers such as paid placements and internships.
Some paid temporary work experience interventions are designed to support young people who are long-term unemployed or at particular risk of marginalisation, such as disabled young people. These typically offer additional support to the young person and employer, for example through case worker support.
Internships are more likely to be offered to undergraduates and recent graduates. However, some opportunities for school leavers and college students can involve short term placements and opportunities to visit workplaces and/or shadow-paid employees.
Any UK organisation — business, charity, public-sector body or social enterprise — that meets legal requirements such as:
Placements can vary considerably between periods of one or two weeks to several months or longer. The majority are relatively short.
Funding may come from diverse sources or from a mixture of sources including:
The amount young people are compensated for varies depending on the specific employers, and the age of the individual taking the placement.
People classed as ‘workers’ must be at least school leaving age to get the National Minimum Wage. They must be 21 or over to get the National Living Wage.
Paid temporary work experience can support individuals to:
Paid temporary work experience can support employers to:
Calculations are based on insights from available high-quality studies on the complexity of delivery requirements and estimated associated costs.
Based on existing evidence, we’ve identified some common features that support the commissioning, design and delivery of effective youth employment programmes:
Design, fund and deliver outreach and recruitment activities that raise young people’s awareness, with targeted initiatives to reach under-represented group who are most likely to benefit.
This might include:
Discover more about risk factors associated with being NEET.
Also consider how best to identify and engage the most suitable partners and employers for a programme. Engagement should be timely and clear, in ways that raise awareness and facilitate recruitment, enrolment, and sustained engagement.
Effective programmes may use direct community outreach activities for engaging under-served groups, alongside up-to-date local and administrative data, working with public employment services, or advertising vacancies along with eligibility criteria.
Some programmes mirror the process of applying for a job by advertising vacancies, or getting employers to advertise vacancies, so that young people can apply for them.
Design, fund and deliver programmes that:
Design, fund and deliver programmes that foster collaboration effective partnerships between employers and other stakeholders
Strong partnerships between employers, public institutions, support providers and communities can help to build and sustain successful programmes, as can collaborations between different providers of the same programme.
Support providers and delivery organisations to accurately and systematically capture and communicate data and milestones and track programme outcomes. This may include structured and standardised tracking forms, or developing realistic programme-specific performance frameworks.
For funders and commissioners – ensure recorded data, reporting and assessment captures a full range of appropriate and relevant youth employment and related outcomes to help rich understanding to ensure rich picture of what programmes do.
Encouraging reporting commonly recognised metrics allows evaluation to be easily comparable and included in the growing evidence base.
| Included studies | 53 |
|---|---|
| Location(s) | High-income countries |
| Outcome | Labour force status, earnings, employment duration, hours worked, and education & skills |
| Comparator | 'Services as usual' / Business as usual |
The Youth Employment Toolkit brings together evidence from robust studies in high-income countries that:
Find details of individual studies, as well as other systematic reviews of youth employment evaluations, in the Youth Employment Evidence and Gap Map.
More information about included studies can be found in page 55-60 of the full CNMA report. The specific evidence profile for paid temporary work experience can be found on page 190.
The evidence strength ratings for paid temporary work experience reflect the number of studies included in the meta-analysis. Studies were scored on reported design, sample size, approach to attrition, and definitions of interventions and outcome measures. More detail can be found in the technical guide.
The following are not included in the definition of paid temporary work experience because they are discussed elsewhere in the Toolkit:
The Toolkit analysis also excludes:
The research identified differences between the impacts of paid and unpaid work experience. This might reflect differences between the populations served, delivery contexts, or the combination of components provided alongside work experience.
Alternatively it might reflect factors associated with payment or non-payment, or with the slightly different average duration of programmes.
A better understanding of what drives these differences would help decision-makers to plan effective interventions for their context.
The current evidence can also be strengthened by taking a consistent approach to incorporating standardised metrics for education, employment and training outcomes as well as outcomes that indicate work quality.
If you have feedback or a question about the Toolkit, please get in touch.
