Today, Alan Milburn’s interim review on young people and work lands with the weight it deserves. He calls this a “generational fault line” and warns we are “at risk of a lost generation”.
And the latest ONS figures underline why:
1,012,000
young people aged 16 to 24 are now not in education, employment or training (NEET), 13.5% of all young people, and rising.
It is tempting, in policy conversations, to let numbers blur into shorthand. But as Aimee Wallis, our Careers Lead at the IMI, wrote this week: “Because these are not just ‘NEETs’. They are our future generation.”
Her point is simple and powerful: behind every statistic is a young person with potential, trying to find their place in a system that too often is not built for them.
Here is the hard truth. We have a growing pool of young people who need clearer pathways into real work, and at the same time we have a skills funding mechanism that is not doing what it was designed to do. Under the current “use it or lose it” rules, analysis has shown employers have been returning the equivalent of £1.1bn a year in unspent levy funds to the Treasury. That is money that should be building confidence, competence and careers.
The irony is that many employers are not short of intent. Milburn’s report recognises employers’ willingness, but also their concern about complexity and risk, especially for smaller firms. In automotive, that resonates strongly. The sector is dominated by SMEs, and while demand for skilled people remains high, too many businesses tell us the system is hard to navigate, hard to access, and hard to align to fast-changing skills needs.
At the IMI, we are clear on what good looks like.
First, apprenticeships must remain the priority and gold standard for developing work-ready technicians, particularly in safety-critical roles. But second, employers also need genuine flexibility to invest levy funds where skills gaps are most pressing, including modular training and CPD that keeps pace with electrification and digitalisation, while protecting quality.
That means reform that makes the system simpler and more accessible for SMEs, with clearer rules and smoother transfer processes, so funding can flow to where it will deliver real opportunity. And it means safeguarding standards, with robust, independent assessment and training that remains rigorous, consistent and trusted by employers and the public.
Milburn is right. This cannot be solved by one department, one programme, or one set of headlines. We need joined-up solutions across education, employers and policy.
Because the choice is stark. We can allow the label “NEET” to become a life sentence for more than a million young people. Or we can fix the system, use the funds already on the table, and build the high-quality pathways that young people, and the UK economy, urgently need.
