More than one million young people in Britain, aged 16 to 24, are now not in employment, education or training – a crisis that has pushed the UK among the worst performers in Europe, with only Romania recording a higher rate in recent comparisons.
The proportion of Neets has been climbing fast: from 12 per cent at the end of 2023 to a new high of 13.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2026. The rise comes even as many European countries have reduced their own rates, leaving the UK isolated in its failure to keep young people on track.
“UK Neet rate hits new high of 13.5% as Andy Burnham faces regional crisis with 1m+ young jobless.”
Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, knows we have a problem, but fixing it will require understanding why so many young people appear to be frittering away their futures. A shortage of jobs would demand different remedies from unfitness for work, and the evidence points to three overlapping crises: health, education and regional inequality.
A growing proportion of economically inactive Neets report health problems, including mental ill health, as a reason they cannot work. Many have been fostered, are in special needs schools, or were raised by inexperienced, young parents. Others, overlapping with those suffering anxiety, messed up their GCSEs. Nationally, a third of children leave school without a level 4 or above in Maths and English – and poor performance is class-biased: the lower the status, the worse the results. One brilliant child with zero GCSEs is desperate to work, but Whitehall’s credentialism blocks him: many vocational routes require those qualifications.
The Neet rate is generally higher across northern England and the Midlands than in London, where only 12 per cent of kids are Neets. The North-East has the highest rate – between 15 and 21 per cent – followed by Yorkshire and Humberside, the East Midlands, the North-West and the West Midlands. Young people in London benefit from cultural advantages: abundant role models of success, aspirational parents working in high-skilled finance jobs, or immigrant families keen for their children to succeed. London is the top-performing region for GCSEs.
The antithesis is the bleakness facing children in broken, demoralised, and deprived coastal and former industrial towns. Blackpool, despite five years of renewal driven by an excellent mayor, still has one of the highest rates of male suicides in the country.
Burnham, who has been asked whether women will get a seat at his table as he shapes policy, must now confront a crisis that demands all three remedies – health support, educational reform and regional investment – if the Neet rate is to be reversed.