About one million young people across the UK are not in jobs, training, or education, roughly one in eight, and the situation is worsening in absolute and relative terms. The rate has moved from near the EU average a decade ago to being worse than all but Romania in 2025. The problem is increasingly entrenched: six in 10 young people who are not in employment, education, or training have never had a job, compared with four in 10 in 2005. The cumulative cost is estimated at £125bn. The causes are described as structural, linked to disparities in wealth, background, geography, and ethnicity, including education gaps, persistent school absence, care experience, young caring responsibilities, and health barriers.
"About 1 million young people across the UK are not in jobs, training or education about one in eight and things are getting worse, both absolutely and relatively. As Milburn notes, a decade ago the UK's Neet rate was near the EU average. In 2025, only Romania's rate was worse. It is also increasingly entrenched. The report says that six in 10 young people who are Neet have never had a single job, against four in 10 in 2005."
"Milburn writes: We are at risk of a lost generation. That is a moral crisis. It has economic consequences. This cumulative cost, the report says, is estimated at 125bn. A constant thread of the report is that these issues are structural, not down to today's young people being workshy or coddled. And much of this is due to disparities in wealth, background, geography or ethnicity."
"One statistic cited shows that in Barnet, north London, 1% of 16- and 17-year-olds are Neet. In Dudley, in the West Midlands, this is 21.5%. Of the 10 English local authorities with the highest proportion of young people not in work or education, eight are in the north or Midlands. This is in turn the result of a range of risk factors, including education those with fewer GCSEs, or additional needs, or who are persistently absent from school, are strongly connected to future Neet status."
"Similarly, being a care leaver or a young carer increases the risk. Geography plays its own part. People with identical backgrounds will face more barriers to work or education in some places. This can also cover areas such as transport London, which has both plentiful public transport and free or discounted youth travel, has a notably low level of Neets, the report notes, adding that this is just one factor. Health, Milburn says, has become central to who becomes Neet and who stays Neet."
#neet-youth #uk-education-and-employment #economic-inequality #regional-disparities #youth-health-and-care
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