What Works
Pre-employment vocational training impact evaluation
Improving understanding of what works to support marginalised young people access good work
The systems challenge
Existing evidence suggests pre-employment vocational training is a promising form of support for young people who face additional barriers in the labour market. However, there are currently limited high-quality evaluations of UK programmes, meaning we have less confidence in their impact employment, education, and training (EET) outcomes.
Our aim
To address this evidence gap and understand more about the impact pre-employment vocational training has on EET outcomes of marginalised young people in the UK.
What are we doing?
We are generating robust evidence on the impact of pre-employment vocational training on education, employment and training (EET) outcomes by conducting a randomised controlled trial (RCT) of an existing support programme in England delivered by Cornwall Council.
We want to understand:
- what impact the programme has on employment, education, and training outcomes for young people
- why and how the programme works
- whether the programme is good value for money
Mobilisation phase
Read more about Mobilisation phaseEvaluators worked with Cornwall Council to:
- Develop and refine the theory of change
- Design the evaluation and develop the trial protocol
- Assess whether it is feasible to conduct a full trial
The mobilisation phase ran until Summer 2026 and confirmed that the intervention is suitable for an RCT.
Evaluation phase
Read more about Evaluation phaseDelivery began in September 2026 and is planned to run until December 2027.
Young people have been randomly allocated to either:
- The control group – who will receive business as usual support (up to 6 months of support including fortnightly key worker meetings, one-to-one employability and life skills support, and functional skills sessions).
- The treatment group – who will receive the intervention (12 weeks of confidence, motivation and life skills support along with weekly key worker meetings, followed by 12 weeks of pre-employment vocational training).
Data on EET outcomes will be collected at 6 months after randomisation, along with improvements in self-esteem, agency, self-efficacy, and work readiness, and again at 9 months.
Outcomes from both groups will be compared to assess the impact of intensive employment support including pre-employment vocational training relative to lighter touch support.
We will also conduct an implementation and process evaluation (IPE) and cost-benefit analysis to understand why interventions are effective (or less effective), and the value for money.
A pilot report will be available in Spring 2027. We anticipate final outputs will be available in 2028.
Building on previous work
This evaluation builds on insights from our Youth Employment Toolkit, which collates available, high-quality evidence on the impact of youth employment interventions and their components.
The evaluation is part of our What Works programme, which aims to generate high-quality, causal evidence about youth employment, education, and training outcomes.
