Almost a million young people in the UK are neither working, studying nor training, Government figures show. And the reason more of them are stuck outside the jobs market has less to do with ambition than with what it costs a business to give young people a chance in the first place.
New figures on young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 27 August 2026, put the UK total at 981,000 people aged 16-24 in April to June 2026, a decrease of 30,000 on the previous quarter. In percentage points, that means the NEET rate stood at 13.0%, down 0.5 percentage points on the quarter.
Despite that quarter-on-quarter decrease, however, the general outlook for this cohort isn’t positive. Annually, NEET rates are up 3% (from 12.8% in 2025), meaning the picture for young people is getting worse, not better.
Some groups are more likely than others to be considered NEET, too. When the total number of young people is considered through the lens of gender, 530,000 were young men compared to 451,000 young women.
Finding a First Job is Harder than Ever
A separate poll of 2,031 UK adults, commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions and published alongside the NEET figures, found 67% think a lack of experience is the single biggest barrier standing between a young person and a “good job.”
Six in 10 (60%) said finding a first job or work experience is harder for young people now than it was for their parents’ generation, and a third (33%) said reducing the cost and risk for employers of hiring a young person would help address the rise.
The same poll found 67% agreed that employers benefit from experienced workers but avoid investing in young talent, a view shared by 84% of 16-to-24-year-olds themselves, and 78% said employers should play a bigger role in offering work experience.
Georgiana Bristol, Chief Executive of the Jobs Foundation, told Employment Hero the economic case for tackling that number early is stark:
“A young person who falls into long-term unemployment can lose around £1m in earnings over a working life, and the cost to the taxpayer runs to a similar figure again in lost tax revenue and additional benefits spending.”
The Cost of a UK Entry-Level Job Has Gone Up
The annual increase has arrived in a landscape that was clearly already stretched. As Employment Hero’s research into youth unemployment earlier this year found, vacancies for entry-level roles have dropped sharply since 2024, as businesses pivot toward full-time hiring to manage rising costs, squeezing out the flexible, junior positions young people have traditionally relied on to get started.
Kevin Fitzgerald, UK Managing Director of Employment Hero, said the figures only tell part of the story.
“The NEET figures show how many young people are outside work, education and training. But the bigger question is whether we have created the conditions that make it easy for employers to give someone their first opportunity.
“Employment costs are up, the consequences of a bad hire are greater, and entry-level roles increasingly ask for previous experience. Young people are responding by doing unpaid work and teaching themselves new skills, but employers are still being pushed towards candidates who can contribute immediately. The problem isn’t a lack of ambition among young people; it’s that the first rung of the career ladder has become harder and more expensive to provide.”
Employment Hero data shows the extent of that squeeze. According to an April YouGov and Employment Hero survey of business leaders across the UK, the cost of a full-time hire is 10% higher than it was 12 months ago – a jump that disproportionately impacts entry-level roles. While some employers have taken steps to redress the issue in the short-term, the issue remains that fewer businesses are willing to absorb the cost of training someone with little to no experience.
Entry-Level Roles Now Expect Experience
The goalposts for a first job have also moved alongside the price of filling one. Employment Hero figures found that 88% of UK workers say “entry-level” jobs now require one to two years’ prior experience, a bar that undercuts the entire premise of an entry-level role.
Even so, young people have had no choice but to adapt to that bar. Three in four 18-24-year-old workers surveyed by Employment Hero said they had done unpaid work to gain the experience employers expect. Although they aren’t NEET, the lengths this age group are increasingly going to in order to avoid becoming so says a lot about how far employment prospects have shifted for young people.
The Jobs Guarantee Scheme Has Started Paying Wages
The first practical test of that argument is already underway. The Government’s Jobs Guarantee scheme, launched this summer as part of a £2.5 billion drive to tackle youth unemployment, placed its first cohort of 18-24-year-olds into paid roles in Cardiff, Newport, Merthyr Tydfil, Bridgend, Swansea, Caerphilly and Rhondda Cynon Taf this week.
The scheme fully funds up to 25 hours of paid work for six months for young people who have been claiming Universal Credit and looking for work for 18 months, with 3,500 places earmarked for Wales over the next three years and more than 90,000 planned across the UK by 2029.
The Economic Case for Investing in Youth Employment
Georgiana, CEO of the Jobs Foundation, also argues that the cost of employment itself is significant.
“We believe that businesses create jobs, and they create more when tax and regulation reward growth rather than penalise it. Youth unemployment is high because too many businesses that would otherwise be hiring are held back by the cost and risk of employment,” she says.
“Bring down the cost and risk of employing people, because that determines how many jobs businesses create. The Employment Rights Act loads more cost and legal risk onto every hire, and rises in the minimum wage and employer National Insurance Contributions have made taking someone on more expensive at exactly the moment we need businesses hiring more young people”. She says that while the Government’s recent youth jobs grant is welcome, on its own “a grant offsetting £3,000 means little if the underlying cost of employment keeps climbing”.
Prospects for young people have been on a decline for some time now. As businesses weigh up the implications of taking them on, the government’s Young People and Work review, an independent inquiry commissioned by the Work and Pensions Secretary and led by Alan Milburn, is set to make changes.
Whether its final recommendations, expected in September, tackle the cost of hiring itself, not just the support young people get to look for a job, will likely decide whether businesses change how they recruit.
