A UK Government-funded employment office, utilized to help job-seekers and manage claims for unemployment benefits. Photo: Helen Cobain via Flickr

LONDON, UK - An estimated 981,000 young people in the UK were not in education, employment or training (NEET) between April and June 2026, according to the Office for National Statistics, an increase of 30,000 compared with the same period in 2025. Earlier in the year, between January and April, the number had risen above one million, a level the UK had not seen since 2013.

In May 2026, former UK Health Secretary Alan Milburn published Young People and Work: Interim Report, commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions to investigate why so many young people were out of work or education and what was keeping them from returning. The report found that roughly one in eight young people were not in education, employment or training, while nearly 60% of those classified as NEET were economically inactive and not looking for work. It also found that the share of young people reporting a work-limiting health condition as the reason they were NEET had increased by 70% over the past decade.

Between April and June 2026, the share of young people in work, education or training had begun to improve, increasing by 0.5 percentage points from 86.5% in the first three months of the year to 87.0%. But with nearly a million young people still classified as NEET, the government has committed £2.5 billion to creating one million opportunities for young people to “earn or learn”.

The Long-Term Cost of Being NEET

A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that being NEET carries a profound human cost, undermining young people’s social networks, self-worth, and routine. The young people IPPR interviewed described a “fear of being left behind” as friends moved into university, training, or work while they remained without the same structure, income, or sense of progress. Moreover, research published in April 2026 by University College London (UCL) found that the consequences of being NEET can persist well beyond young adulthood, as individuals who were consistently NEET between the ages of 16 and 24 were nearly six times as likely to be unemployed or economically inactive at age 51 and three times as likely to report poor health than those who had never been NEET. The UCL report also found that even shorter periods spent outside education, employment, or training were associated with worse outcomes later in life, including greater financial difficulty, poorer health, and higher psychological distress. Dr Alina Pelikh, co-author of the report, described this as a ‘scarring’ effect, in which early disengagement from education and work can lead to sustained detachment from the labour market, with consequences for physical and mental health

According to Milburn’s Young People and Work: Interim Report, the annual economic, fiscal, and social cost associated with young people being NEET is estimated at £125 billion, which includes lost economic potential, reduced tax revenue, benefit and health spending, and wellbeing impacts and the longer-term economic costs of scarring. The report also notes that the £125 billion estimate is higher than England’s annual spending on education.

Why are Young People Becoming NEET?

In the past 20 years, the number of entry-level jobs has fallen by 1.6 million. Consequently, job seekers now face intense competition, frequently sending out hundreds of applications without receiving a single reply. As noted by Milburn, this silence has become the norm for young people as industries that primarily hire them, such as hospitality, have seen job opportunities halved in the last four years alone. At the same time, the NEET population increasingly includes young people who are no longer trying to enter the workforce at all, with nearly 60% categorized as economically inactive and more than six in ten having never held a job, according to Milburn’s report. The report points to rising work-limiting health conditions as one of the main reasons for that inactivity, particularly mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions.

According to The Health Foundation, 44% of young people classified as NEET reported a work-limiting condition in 2025, up from 26% in 2015. Among all 16-to-24-year-olds, roughly one in three with a work-limiting condition are NEET, compared with around one in ten of those without one. Although that likelihood has remained relatively stable over the past decade, the number of young people reporting conditions that limit their ability to work has risen sharply, with the share increasing from 9% in 2015 to 16% in 2025. Furthermore, Milburn’s report found that once health-related inactivity begins, it can be difficult to reverse, with almost eight in ten young people who entered health-related economic inactivity between 2017 and 2019 still classified as NEET more than two years later.

Who is most at Risk?

From October to December 2025, the Office for National Statistics found that 13.3% of young men were classified as NEET, compared with 12.2% of young women. However, the nature of their inactivity can differ significantly. For example, ONS analysis of the 2021 Census found that half of NEET young men were unemployed and looking for work, compared with around a third of young women. Caregiving was highlighted in the ONS analysis as a more common reason for women being classified as NEET, with 28% looking after family or home compared with just 6% of men.

In 2024, Black, African and Caribbean young people had the highest NEET rate among the ethnic groups measured, at 15.2%, according to Milburn’s report. White young people followed at 13.2%, while Pakistani and Bangladeshi young people were at 12.6%. Chinese young people had the lowest rate, at 8.7%.

A study using the UK Millennium Cohort Study found that young people exposed to both persistent poverty and poor parental mental health from infancy through age 14 had five times greater odds of being NEET at age 17 than those who experienced low levels of poverty and family adversity. Between 2022 and 2024, socioeconomic background was also strongly associated with NEET status, with young people from higher professional backgrounds having a NEET rate of 8.9%, compared with 22% among those from lower working-class backgrounds.

Milburn’s report found that in 2024/25, young people with disabilities faced an even greater risk of becoming NEET, with 29.6% classified as NEET compared with 8.7% of those without a disability. The report also found that young people with special educational needs and disabilities were around 80% more likely to be NEET than average. That likelihood also varied sharply by location, with eight of the ten English local authorities with the highest NEET rates located in the North of England and the Midlands, where weaker local labour markets and higher levels of deprivation can limit opportunities for young people. In Blackpool, a coastal town with high levels of deprivation and labour-market weakness, almost one in four young people were NEET, while in Bath, a comparatively more affluent and economically advantaged area, the rate was below one in ten.

The UK’s Response to the NEET Crisis

The National Centre for Social Research found that signs associated with a higher risk of becoming NEET can emerge as early as age 11. Educational attainment was identified as the strongest predictor, alongside socioeconomic disadvantage and special educational needs. Additionally, young people who achieved no General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSEs) were more than five times as likely to experience a period of being NEET as those who achieved five or more GCSE qualifications, while 52% of young people who had spent time in local-authority care, such as foster care or a children’s home, experienced NEET status compared with 12% of those who had never been in care. The research found that identifying these risks earlier and providing targeted support could substantially reduce a young person’s likelihood of later becoming NEET.

The UK government is set to open nearly 180 additional Youth Hubs over the next two years to support young people who have already left education or become disconnected from work. The initiative takes inspiration from the Netherlands’ Jongerenpunt (“Youth Point”) model, which was introduced in Amsterdam in 2015 as part of the city’s effort to reduce youth unemployment. The model is designed to identify young people at risk of becoming disconnected from work or education and help move them back into employment, training, or study before that disengagement becomes long-term. In June 2026, Labour Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden visited a Jongerenpunt in Rotterdam to examine how the Dutch system uses early intervention and cooperation between local government, educators, employers, and community organizations to help young people return to work, education, or training. Following the visit, McFadden said the UK should learn from a system where “inactivity is a last resort” and where there is “a pathway for every young person.”

The government is also aiming to create 300,000 new work experience and training placements through its Youth Guarantee, a program intended to ensure that 18-to-21-year-olds have access to education, training, an apprenticeship, or support finding work. The placements will be created over the next three years and will include programmes that combine vocational training, work experience, and a guaranteed job interview. According to Department for Work and Pensions data, around four in ten participants in these Sector-based Work Academy Programmes move into sustained employment within six months.

The placements will form part of the government’s £2.5 billion youth employment package.

Author Bio: Jenny Melia is a nonpartisan committee page for the Minnesota House of Representatives. She holds a Bachelor of Science with High Distinction in Sociology of Law, Crime, and Justice from the University of Minnesota.