Interim youth work review warns UK young people not in education, employment, or training could pass 16 percent

The Young People and Work Review says weak transitions from education into work, rising health-related inactivity, school absence, and reduced entry routes are leaving more 16- to 24-year-olds outside education, employment, or training.

The interim Young People and Work Review examines how careers guidance, work experience, recruitment processes, and health-related inactivity are affecting young people’s routes into education, employment, or training.

The interim Young People and Work Review has warned that the United Kingdom’s rate of young people not in education, employment, or training (NEET) could rise to more than 16 percent within five years, leaving more than 1.25 million 16- to 24-year-olds outside full participation in education, training, or work.

The review was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, supported by the Secretaries of State for Health and Social Care and for Education, to examine the rise in young people who are NEET, economically inactive, and claiming health and disability benefits.

Alison Ismail, Director at the Department for Work and Pensions, shared the interim report on LinkedIn and described the Young People and Work Review as "exceptionally important."

The report says 957,000 young people aged 16 to 24 were NEET at the end of 2025. It estimates the cumulative annual cost to the UK of almost one million NEET young people at £125 billion, a figure the review says is higher than annual education spending.

The final report is expected later this year and will set out what the review describes as a "coherent participation system for early adulthood," including responsibility, funding, accountability, and how young people not reached by the current system should be supported.

Education, health, and welfare systems under scrutiny

The interim report argues that youth disengagement is no longer mainly a question of short-term unemployment. It says nearly 60 percent of young people who are NEET are now economically inactive, meaning they are not working and not looking for work.

Health is identified as one of the biggest shifts in the data. In 2025, 44 percent of NEET young people reported a work-limiting health condition, up from 26 percent in 2015. The proportion of disabled young people who are NEET and cite mental health as their primary condition has risen from 24.3 percent in 2011 to 42.6 percent in 2025.

The report also says more than six in ten NEET young people have never had a job, compared with 42 percent 20 years ago. It warns that young people who remain NEET for longer than a year are less likely to return to education, employment, or training the following year.

The review links the issue to education from the early years onward. It says children who are not school-ready at ages four to five are nearly three times as likely to be NEET at ages 16 to 17, with academic attainment, communication and language, and personal, social, and emotional development all connected to later outcomes.

School absence is also identified as a major risk factor. The report says around 1.34 million students in England were persistently absent in 2024 and 2025, missing at least ten percent of school time. Persistent absenteeism is associated with a 3.9 times greater risk of being NEET at age 16 to 18 and a 6.3 times greater risk of being persistently NEET.

Careers guidance and work experience gaps

The report says the education system is still too heavily focused on attainment rather than sustained outcomes after students leave school or college. It says schools and colleges are measured mainly on qualifications, while destination measures do not generally drive Ofsted judgments, funding, or intervention.

The review points to gaps in careers guidance and work experience. Only 47 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds, and 36 percent of young people who are NEET, agreed that they felt ready for work when they left education.

Access to face-to-face careers advice remains limited. The report says only 32 percent of young people reported receiving face-to-face careers advice in 2025, while apprenticeships were discussed with 18 percent. It says lack of work experience is the single most-cited barrier to work among young people.

The government has committed to reforming work experience so that every student can access two weeks of multiple, meaningful, and varied workplace experiences across key stages 3 and 4. The report says the concept of work experience should also include employer encounters such as volunteering, projects, mock interviews, and work taster sessions.

Amazon, in a call for evidence response cited in the review, said "workplace readiness gaps at scale" are one of the main barriers preventing young people from entering and starting in employment.

The report adds that apprenticeship routes have moved away from young people. In England, apprenticeship starts for those aged 16 to 24 have fallen by 35 percent since the Apprenticeship Levy was introduced, while Level 2 starts for young people have fallen by 68 percent.

AI recruitment and entry-level work

The review also examines the labor market young people are entering, including the effect of online recruitment and automated screening. It says recruitment for entry-level roles is now more formalized and remote, with online portals, automated screening, psychometric tests, recorded video interviews, and multi-stage recruitment processes used for jobs that may require little or no formal qualification.

A young woman quoted in the report said: "I think they should get rid of the AI system that reads CVs. On Indeed, it just filters out CVs. If someone doesn’t have the right word and the system doesn’t like it, it’ll just throw it away."

The report says young people with anxiety, limited digital access, no quiet space, or no support to navigate applications can be disadvantaged by these processes. It also notes that artificial intelligence and automation could put more pressure on entry-level roles traditionally used by younger workers, including administrative support, data entry, routine customer service, and clerical work.

The review does not treat AI as a major cause of the current NEET problem, but it says the effect of AI on youth employment needs to be taken seriously now. It also cites the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s view that AI-driven tools can improve job matching, personalize support, translate skills, and connect jobseekers to training, healthcare, and flexible opportunities.

The final report will make recommendations later this year. The interim report says it will focus on the structure of a participation system for early adulthood, rather than another short-term program added to the existing education, health, welfare, and employment systems.