The UK can’t achieve growth and lower poverty with a million young people locked out of opportunity

Andy Burnham arrives in office as prime minister with no shortage of urgent challenges demanding attention, including economic growth, the cost of living, and regional inequality. One issue underpins progress on all of these: helping more young people into work.

The latest labour market figures are a reminder of the unprecedented pressures facing this generation of young people. Amidst a challenging jobs market, youth unemployment continues to consistently tick upwards and remains at its highest level for over a decade. Yet the most worrying trend is not contained in a single month’s data. It is the growing number of young people who are becoming disconnected from employment, education and training altogether.

More than one million young people aged 16 to 24 wake up each day without any job, education or training to go to. The headline figure is alarming enough. But the deeper warning comes from the initial findings of the Milburn Review, which is already sitting on the prime minister’s desk. It warns of a growing generational fault line and social contract that feels broken.

Our own research here at The King’s Trust shows the devastating impact of being out of work. Since 2009, we have tracked young people’s happiness, confidence and aspirations.  Young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) consistently report the lowest scores. More than half say being unemployed makes them feel hopeless about their future and that the longer they are unemployed, the more difficult it is to find work.

This is not because they lack ambition. Among NEET young people unhappy with their current situation, two-thirds say they want to find work.

At The King’s Trust, we meet young people every day who have applied for job after job without success. Repeated rejection leaves them questioning their confidence, prospects and, ultimately, their place in society. Young people like 24-year-old Joseph, from Birmingham, who experienced homelessness and who has spent more than three years applying for around 30 jobs a month with no reply. These young people want to work, gain independence and build a future, but can’t find a way forward.

When large numbers of young people are shut out of opportunity, businesses lose access to future talent. Communities lose spending power. Public services face increased pressures. Local economies find it harder to grow. It becomes a vicious circle.

This challenge is particularly acute in parts of the country already facing long-term economic disadvantage. The Milburn Review highlights eight of the 10 English local authorities facing the highest NEET risk are in the North and Midlands. In Blackpool, almost a quarter of young people are NEET.

There can be no sustainable ‘growth in every postcode’ while too many young people in those postcodes remain shut out of opportunity.

The public understands this too. New YouGov polling commissioned by The King’s Trust found that 72% of the general public are concerned about youth unemployment, while more than two-thirds believe more should be done to tackle it. Concern cuts across political affiliation, age, gender, region and socioeconomic background.

For a new government looking to demonstrate that growth can be felt in communities across the country, youth employment offers an opportunity to deliver on both economic and social priorities. And we know that investing in young people works. Independent analysis shows that at least £11.4 billion of social value can be attributed directly to the impact of King’s Trust programmes to date, and every 10,000 more young people we help in future could lead to £105m in social value.

Young people need practical, targeted support that recognises the real barriers they face. Help to build confidence, skills, and access employers willing to give them a first chance. For some, this means interview preparation or work experience. For others, support with travel costs, mental health, or caring responsibilities. It must be local and sustained, focused on reaching young people who are furthest from the labour market, with employers, education providers, charities and government working together so that young people are not left to navigate a fragmented system alone.

Read more:

• How Britain failed one million NEET young people: ‘We’re wasting a generation’s talent’
• Youth unemployment has a ‘long-term scarring effect’ affecting finances and health decades later
• Here’s what Andy Burnham can do right away to address homelessness and NEETs crisis

We see every day what can happen when young people can access this support. Asma, who is 23 and lives in the West Midlands, had applied for more than 200 jobs after leaving college, with the repeated rejection leaving her questioning whether she would ever find work. Through the King’s Trust, she rebuilt her confidence, before joining one of our programmes which offered work experience, interview support and a job opportunity. Today she is working, gaining independence and looking forward to her future.

The final Milburn Review will rightly spark debate about what more can be done to improve outcomes for young people. But the broad challenge is already clear: the UK cannot credibly deliver economic growth, stronger communities or lower poverty while more than one million young people remain disconnected from opportunity.

The public can see the scale of the problem, and the evidence increasingly points towards the solutions. Any serious plan for national renewal must now put young people at its heart. That is the challenge facing the new prime minister.

Richard Rigby is head of UK government affairs at The King’s Trust

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