Home What we do Our focus areas

Explore our themes of work below.

Barriers and discrimination in employment

What is the issue that needs addressing?

Marginalised groups of young people encounter entrenched employment barriers and discrimination, and a lack of actionable insights to overcome them.

Explore the discrimination and work report
How do we intend to address it?

Identify and expose systemic employment barriers for marginalised young people, advocating for evidence-based policy and practice reforms that ensure equity and inclusion, through parternships like Talent Unlocked.

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Place-based change

What is the issue that needs addressing?

Local youth employment systems are fragmented and constrained by restrictive funding that lacks precise, evidence-based direction.

Explore the data
How do we intend to address it?

Empower local youth employment systems to function more effectively by supporting them to better understand and analyse localised youth employment challenges and devise evidence informed, locally-tailored solutions for marginalised young people.

Learn more about Connected Futures

Mental health & wellbeing

What is the issue that needs addressing?

Rising mental health issues among NEET young people lack a robust evidence base for effective intervention.

Explore existing evidence
How do we intend to address it?

Deepen understanding of and drive improved outcomes in the interplay between mental health and youth unemployment, by testing, identifying and promoting evidence-based interventions solutions.

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Early intervention & transition

What is the issue that needs addressing?

Investment in preventing NEET outcomes is minimal, with support from employment services often too broad and disjointed and lacking in sufficient targeted interventions.

How do we intend to address it?

Strengthen the evidence base for early NEET prevention and transition interventions for marginalised young people, to inform joined up policy and practice solutions through our Building Futures programme.

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Apprenticeships & vocational training

What is the issue that needs addressing?

Despite their potential, apprenticeships and vocational training for marginalised young people lack sufficient quality and availability of opportunities.

Available evidence
How do we intend to address it?

Understand more about what works in apprenticeships and vocational training to be highly impactful for marginalised young people and advocate for policy and practice reforms to increase opportunities and boost quality of provision.

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Employment support programmes

What is the issue that needs addressing?

A poor understanding and inconsistent application of evidence in employment support programmes leads to misdirected investments. This issue is exacerbated by inadequate structures to sustain and scale effective practices.

Available evidence
How do we intend to address it?

Cultivate a robust evidence base to delineate and promote what works in youth employment support for NEET young people, guiding local and national policy makers to adopt and fund effective, sustainable programmes for marginalised young people.

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Young people in focus

Across our themes of work, we focus our research and investment on the most marginalised young people.

This strategic focus is informed by our robust analysis of a range of insights from:

  • current labour market data
  • high-quality evidence on youth employment and education outcomes
  • learnings from existing programmes
  • the evolving political and environmental landscape
Disparities in outcomes

Across the UK, the proportion of young people not in education, employment or training remains consistently high.

The challenge is even greater for the most marginalised young people, who face serious systemic barriers to finding and keeping good work.

Young people who share one or more of the following characteristics are disproportionately represented among those who are not in education, employment, or training (NEET) for extended periods:

  • Black
  • Pakistani
  • Bangladeshi
  • Experience of the care system
  • Experience of the justice system
  • Learning disability
  • Autism
  • Mental health challenges
Urgent attention

This strategic focus is not about excluding others; it reflects a recognition that some groups face compounded barriers that demand urgent attention.

Focusing our efforts enables us to work towards a future where every young person – regardless of their starting point – has the opportunity to thrive in good work.

Intersectionality

We acknowledge that the experiences of marginalisation are deeply intersectional – factors such as gender, sexuality, poverty, and class interact with race, disability, and systemic inequities, amplifying disadvantages.

Our approach will remain attuned to these overlapping dimensions of exclusion, ensuring that our work addresses the broader systems and structures that perpetuate inequality.