Teenage kicks (back) – a rising proportion of young people have never worked 19 October 2025 Delays in when people get their first job have driven a rise in the proportion of young people who have never worked, according to new Resolution Foundation research published later this week that will examine what is driving the number of young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET). The report finds that for those born between 1981-1985, just 38 per cent had never worked by age 17. But for those born 15 years later, between 1996-2000, two-thirds (65 per cent) had never worked by age 17. This rise is likely to have been driven in part by the social and cultural shifts towards young people staying in education longer, backed up by introduction of the Raising the Participation Age (RPA) legislation in 2013, in which young people are required to stay in education until the age of 18. Back in 2005, 75 per cent of 16-17-year-olds were in full-time education. By early 2025, this had risen to 86 per cent. However, while the shift towards greater education participation may have delayed young people’s first taste of the workplace, it has not reduced the number of young NEETs – with the NEET rate for 16-17-year olds remaining between 4 and 5 per cent for most of the last decade. Instead, a steady share of young people are falling out of education prematurely and not finding jobs – in 2025, there were 75,000 16-17-year-olds out of work or study across the UK. NEET rates for 16-17 year olds vary hugely across the country. The proportion who are NEET or unknown to their local authority is as low as 1 per cent in Barnet and 1.6 per cent in Ealing, but as high as 15.1 per cent in Northumberland and a shocking 21.5 per cent in Dudley. That means that despite children being required to stay in education or training until their 18th birthday, over one-in-five 16-17 year olds in Dudley are not in work or study or are otherwise unknown to the local authority. The Foundation warns that the problem of teenage NEETs risks creating wider problems in later in life, with poor education outcomes at age 16-17 massively increasing the risk of being a young adult NEET, unemployed or lower-paid later in life. The challenges facing 16-17 year olds may be different to those aged 18-21 and 22-24 – but they are just as important to tackle. The report recommends a twin-track approach of retaining young people in education and boosting efforts to re-engage with those who fall out of the system to reduce NEET rates among 16-17-year-olds. This should include creating a national ‘front door’ to make it easy for young people to re-enter education, and enable closer tracking of where young people go once they leave education, to allow local authorities to take quicker action and prevent 16-17-year-olds from falling into long-term worklessness. Julia Diniz, Research Specialist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “From flipping burgers to serving drinks or lugging boxes around, people’s first experience of work is often one that stays with them throughout their working lives. “But young people today are delaying their first taste of work and contributing to a rising share of young people who have never worked. This would be understandable if all young people were staying in education for longer. But in six local authority areas across the UK over one-in-ten 16-17-year-olds are neither learning nor earning or are otherwise unknown to their local authority. “We need to help more young people stay in education or return if they drop out. Failing to do so risks stunting their long-term job prospects.”
