June WorkerTech Round-Up

We write to you amidst yet another heatwave, a World Cup and a flurry of activity around Westminster. It’s safe to say a lot is going on at the minute.

Over the past month, the Milburn Review released its first findings. We do a whistlestop tour below of Alan Milburn’s diagnosis of what is driving the surge of young people not in education, employment or training. Instead of stopping there, we’re also giving you insights from a related private roundtable we hosted in May and to top it off, the Foundation’s view on how policy can support employers in hiring more young people.

Until next month,
Aish

Spotlight on: Milburn Review and the million young people at the centre of it

The first part of Alan Milburn’s independent review into youth NEET rates in the UK was published at the end of last month. You might remember from our April issue that NEETs are young people Not in Education, Employment or Training. What has been published so far acts as the diagnosis of the problem, setting out the extent of the issue as well as some of the drivers of inactivity amongst young people.

Nearly 1 million young people are currently NEET in the UK, and Milburn said that without any interventions, that figure could rise to 1.25 million within 5 years. That’s an increase from 1 in 8 young people being economically inactive to a startling 1 in 6.

Here, it’s worth spelling out what being economically inactive means, as it’s not the same as being unemployed. Those unemployed do not have a job but are actively seeking one. Those who are economically inactive are not working and are not currently looking for work. 

Young people at the centre of the Milburn report are now more likely to be economically inactive (53%) than unemployed, and this can be increasingly attributed to mental health conditions like anxiety and depression.

The systems that do exist to help young people underinvest in employment support, with the study estimating that for every £25 the Department for Work & Pensions spends on benefits for young people, it spends just £1 on employment support. The support that does exist focuses on those facing the fewest barriers, which means young people several degrees removed from the labour market are not reached at all.

For us, the Review’s findings on the experience of job hunting were most sobering. Milburn’s team spoke directly to young people who spoke of a job application “black hole” where they were turned down repeatedly for jobs by AI systems or simulations, without ever having interacted with a human in the process.

The review found that employers were also reluctant to hire young people into their first jobs, fearing what the report terms as the pastoral burden of their young workers’ needs, among other challenges like the recent increases in minimum wages.

In light of the publication of the Review’s first part, the Resolution Foundation has taken a look at how policy can be used as a lever to encourage employers to hire more young people. You can find a summary of that research at the end of this newsletter.

The Resolution Ventures view: can tech move the needle?

In May 2026, we brought together researchers, investors, startups, and practitioners for our first roundtable on young non-graduates and the jobs market. The conversation explored why under 25s who aren’t on a university pathway struggle to access good work. This is part of our research into how workertech can help address the urgent and growing issue of economic activity and exclusion facing young people in this country.

The roundtable pointed to three recurring problems.

First, many young people don’t know what options exist, struggle to articulate what they’re good at, and don’t see job-seeking as a skill (something that roundtable attendees remarked is increasingly the case). The struggles of looking for a job are a feature, not a bug, for young people across generations.

Second, leaving school or college removes structure at exactly the moment it’s most needed. What support there is, is spread across too many agencies, with too little continuity.

Third, young people can’t easily translate life experience, such as caring responsibilities, part-time work, and volunteering, into language employers recognise.

This roundtable forms part of our ongoing deep dive into the barriers to securing good work for young non-graduates. We’ll be sharing findings later this year.

Other insights from the Resolution Foundation

They’re Coming Home 

A striking two-thirds of people in their early 20s now live with their parents, up 12% since 2011, and this new RF briefing sets out just how much ground young people have lost on wealth and assets even as their incomes have improved. Home ownership among 20-somethings is in freefall: nearly half of those born in the early 1960s owned a home by 28, compared to just over a quarter for those born three decades later. The wealth gap between people in their 20s and 60s has ballooned to over £500,000.  The report recommends expanding housing support through a new Starter Deposit Scheme, broadening mental health provision alongside employment support, and rethinking apprenticeship funding to better reach under 25s who are being locked out of the gains entirely.

Take A Chance On Me

As this newsletter has discussed, the Milburn report emphasises the vast scale (over a million) of the young people across Britain not in employment, education or training. New Resolution Foundation research, published alongside an event featuring a keynote from Alan Milburn, asks how policy can best get employers to take a chance on young people. The report found that while broad reforms and employability-boosting schemes create the most jobs in absolute terms, targeted schemes are dramatically better value for money per job created. The Foundation also recommends pausing and ultimately abandoning the convergence of youth minimum wage rates with the adult National Living Wage, quadrupling the numbers available under the Youth Jobs Grant, and ringfencing Growth and Skills Levy funding exclusively for under 25s.

Latest news

British Business Bank backs new funds
Congratulations to Evertrue Capital, Common Ventures, Openseed VC, The Tech Bros Fund, Almanac Ventures, Future Impact Ventures, Blue Lake VC, Firstdoor VC, Mustard Seed Fund and Twin Track Ventures, all of whom are part of the first cohort of microfunds to receive the British Business Bank’s backing. Read more about this here.

Organise on the Tech for Good podcast
Organise’s (a Resolution Ventures portfolio company) Amy Kinton joined Paul Miller from Bethnal Green Ventures on his podcast ‘Tech for Good’, where they discussed what’s stopping workers from taking collective action against unfair conditions at work and building the UK’s first live dashboard tracking AI rollouts at major employers. Listen here (via Apple) or here (via Spotify).

Apply for direct investment from Resolution Ventures 
We accept applications from WorkerTech ventures on a rolling basis. You can book a slot in our office hours for an initial conversation.