Most mornings begin the same way for Poppy Blackman. She launches her laptop, navigates to the same job sites she looked at the day before and yesterday, and starts the tedious, routine process of submitting applications into what seems like a void. She used to be able to afford the luxury of applying only within her chosen field of fashion and design, so she had four different CVs, each tailored for a different type of work. Her age is twenty-two. Since January 2025, she has not had a job. She sends out about fifty applications every month on average. She describes the silence that ensues after the majority of them as “soul-crushing.”
Her tale is not unique. Sitting with that part is worthwhile. In the last quarter of 2025, youth unemployment among 18 to 24-year-olds in the UK reached a five-year high. When pandemic distortions are removed, this is essentially an 11-year high.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Issue | Rising youth unemployment across the UK and globally |
| UK Youth Unemployment Rate (18–24) | Five-year high in Q4 2025; 16.1% for ages 16–24 |
| EU Average Youth Unemployment (Q4 2025) | 14.9% — UK now exceeds EU average for first time |
| Overall UK Unemployment Rate | 5.2% (forecast to reach 5.3% in 2026) |
| Key Statistic | 45% of 24-year-olds not in education/work have never held a job |
| Employer NI Rise (UK) | Increased from 13.8% to 15% from April 2025 |
| Cost Increase for Employing Under-21s | Up 26% since 2024 (Centre for Policy Studies) |
| IT Sector Youth Employment | Dropped by approximately one-fifth |
| Government Review | Young People and Work Review, chaired by Alan Milburn |
| Key Voices | Alan Milburn (Gov. Review Chair); Ashwin Prasad (Tesco UK); Jonathan Townsend (King’s Trust) |
| Reference Website | The Guardian — Full Report |
For the first time, the rate surpassed the EU average of 14.9%, reaching 16.1% on a more comprehensive measure that included individuals aged 16 to 24. That is not a statistic that should go unnoticed. Despite its talk of opportunity and ambition, Britain’s youth employment situation is currently worse than that of the majority of continental Europe. It’s difficult to write that sentence, and it’s probably even more difficult to read.
This crisis seems to have been developing slowly enough to avoid the dramatic headlines it was due. There was a gradual tightening rather than a single collapse, with fewer entry-level jobs being advertised, more automated screening tools eliminating applicants before a human ever sees their name, and an economy that has been slow enough for employers to stop opening doors that young people are meant to enter.
The reasoning is straightforward, according to Martin Beck, chief economist at WPI Strategy: firms freeze hiring when business demand is low. They don’t fire current employees. They simply cease admitting new individuals. As a result, there is an invisible wall that young people are constantly pushing against.
Jack, a 21-year-old London resident, earned a first-class degree in history from Oxford last summer. The kind of result that was meant to make things more accessible. Since then, he has applied for over 100 jobs, including internships, graduate programs, and junior positions, and during the entire process, he has only spoken to one person.
One. He stated, “You hear back from maybe 10% of applications and usually it’s automated, so you don’t even know what you’re doing wrong.” Even chatbots have conducted interviews with me. That picture of a young man with one of the most recognizable degrees in the nation being evaluated by an algorithm for a position that most likely pays £25,000 is truly bizarre. and I’m still not understanding.
It would be dishonest to overlook the expenses that employers bear as part of this. Businesses suffered when the Chancellor increased employer National Insurance contributions from 13.8% to 15% in April of last year while also lowering the threshold at which they take effect. That somewhere was entry-level employment for a lot of people.
The Centre for Policy Studies reports that since 2024, the total cost of hiring someone over 21 has increased by about 15%. It’s up 26% for those aged 18 to 20. When you combine that with the Employment Rights Act, growing minimum wages, and pension auto-enrollment, hiring a young, inexperienced employee becomes extremely difficult from a business standpoint. “We’ve had these incremental costs being burdened on employers as if it is just a free lunch,” stated Simon French of Panmure Liberum. It’s not a free lunch, I believe we’re discovering.”
As far as it goes, that’s fair. However, people—rather than balance sheets—are affected, and those with the least amount of protection are most severely affected. The term “existential” was used by Alan Milburn, chair of the government’s Young People and Work review, to characterize the implications of rising youth unemployment for the nation.
Milburn warned that 45% of 24-year-olds who are not currently enrolled in school, working, or receiving training have never held a job at all. Never. Research on the long-term damage caused by early unemployment is consistent and sobering: if you miss that initial opportunity, the consequences reverberate throughout your working life, limiting career advancement, compressing earnings, and making you more dependent on the government for decades. “A generation on the scrapheap” is how Milburn put it. Although it’s direct, the direction of travel is difficult to dispute.
Though its precise role is still genuinely unknown, AI is also present in this picture. AI hasn’t yet been a significant disruptor for young people working in retail and hospitality, according to Jake Finney of PwC. However, youth employment in IT, the industry that many graduates pursued and which has been most obviously impacted by automation, has decreased by about a fifth while adult employment in the same industry has remained relatively stable. Employers may be opting not to invest in junior hires who would require training up because they are unsure of which roles AI will eventually fill. When you don’t know where a pipeline will lead, why build one?
As all of this is happening, it’s difficult to ignore the impression that the offer made to youth has subtly changed without any official announcement. After earning his architecture degree from Manchester in June of last year, 23-year-old Saalim Elhaj has been unemployed for the most part.
He occasionally works on construction sites and travels to London to volunteer with a timber framer on the weekends, learning a traditional construction skill for free in the hopes that someone will eventually hire him as an apprentice. He said that even before completing his degree, he was disillusioned not only by his line of work but by the economy as a whole. “Everything is very uncertain,” he stated, “and I really want to learn a skill.” A university graduate’s statement reveals something about the current state of affairs.
The question is whether the government’s review, which is scheduled to be reported this summer, will yield recommendations that seem appropriate for a smaller issue or whether it will yield something appropriate for the scope of what is occurring. It is tempting to view youth unemployment as a short-term correction that the market will eventually self-correct. However, the statistics indicate that there should be more urgency at this specific time.