Youth disengagement is rising — NEET now 13%, up on a year ago — even as pay outpaces prices overall
Unemployment (4.9%) and economic inactivity (21.0%) both remain above their pre-pandemic levels, driven substantially by long-term sickness. Among young people specifically, 981,000 16-24 year olds were not in education, employment or training in April to June 2026 — 30,000 more than a year earlier. Average pay growth does not describe how gains are distributed across the workforce, or reach the young people this page's own numbers say are falling further behind.
16.2% — April–June 2026
People aged 16–24; includes full-time students. Labour Force Survey reliability caveat applies. Next edition (with the May–July 2026 period) is due 15 September 2026.
View data table
| Value | 16.2% |
|---|---|
| Period | April–June 2026 |
| Geography | United Kingdom |
| Serving state | Verified snapshot · checked 2026-09-12 |
Source: ONS, Educational status and labour market status for people aged 16 to 24 (A06 SA) · series youth.unemp.1624 · as of April–June 2026
Read this first — what else changes the meaning of the headline
- Economic inactivity rate
- 21%
Above the 20.8% pre-COVID (2019) level — people neither working nor looking for work are a separate measure from unemployment, not counted in the headline jobless rate.
- Long-term sickness (inactive)
- 2.8m
Highest on record — the single largest driver of the rise in economic inactivity since the pandemic.
- Young people NEET (16-24)
- 13%
Up 0.2 percentage points on a year earlier — 981,000 young people neither in education, employment nor training in April to June 2026, 30,000 more than a year before. A different, and here more telling, measure than youth unemployment: it captures disengagement from all three, not just joblessness among those looking for work. (Youth unemployment itself, including full-time students, is 16% — see below.)
ONS, Young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), UK
- Real pay vs 2007 (average)
- +4.6%
An AVERAGE across all employees — it does not describe how pay growth is distributed between low, middle and high earners. See the Economy page for the full picture.
Up 0.2 percentage points on the year. Pay is growing faster than prices over the same period, but unemployment and inactivity moving up at the same time means the picture is mixed, not simply positive.
UK Unemployment Rate (16+, %)
Unemployment fell steadily from 2012 to 2019, spiked with COVID, and has crept back up since — structural underemployment and economic inactivity remain concerns even when the headline rate looks low.
View data table
| Year | Unemployment rate % |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 7.9 |
| 2011 | 8.1 |
| 2012 | 7.9 |
| 2013 | 7.6 |
| 2014 | 6.2 |
| 2015 | 5.4 |
| 2016 | 4.9 |
| 2017 | 4.4 |
| 2018 | 4.1 |
| 2019 | 3.8 |
| 2020 | 4.6 |
| 2021 | 4.6 |
| 2022 | 3.8 |
| 2023 | 4.1 |
| 2024 | 4.3 |
| 2025 | 4.9 |
United Kingdom · Source: ONS, Labour market statistics (series MGSX) — official statistics in development · series MGSX · as of 2025 (released 21 July 2026)
Economic Inactivity Rate (16–64, %)
Economic inactivity — people neither working nor looking for work, a DIFFERENT measure from unemployment — rose after COVID on long-term sickness and has only partly fallen back. It is the context the unemployment rate alone does not show.
View data table
| Year | Inactivity rate % |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 23.5 |
| 2011 | 23.3 |
| 2012 | 22.8 |
| 2013 | 22.4 |
| 2014 | 22.2 |
| 2015 | 22.1 |
| 2016 | 21.8 |
| 2017 | 21.5 |
| 2018 | 21.2 |
| 2019 | 20.8 |
| 2020 | 21.2 |
| 2021 | 21.5 |
| 2022 | 21.9 |
| 2023 | 21.7 |
| 2024 | 21.8 |
| 2025 | 21 |
United Kingdom · Source: ONS, Labour market statistics (series LF2S) — official statistics in development · series LF2S · as of 2025 (released 21 July 2026)
What the facts show
Changing nature of work
- → Full-time employment share declining since 2000
- → Part-time and temporary contracts growing
- → Self-employment rose from ~12% to ~15% of workforce
- → Gig economy platforms created new “flexible” but insecure work
- → Long-term sickness now highest on record — 2.8m economically inactive due to ill health
Source: ONS Labour Force Survey
Real Weekly Pay (£, constant 2015 prices)
2011–2013 and 2022–2023 saw the deepest real wage falls in modern UK history. This is an average — see the Economy page for average-vs-median and the housing/rent context that changes what this recovery means for actual households.
View data table
| Year | Real weekly pay (£) |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 494 |
| 2011 | 487 |
| 2012 | 481 |
| 2013 | 475 |
| 2014 | 473 |
| 2015 | 483 |
| 2016 | 490 |
| 2017 | 489 |
| 2018 | 492 |
| 2019 | 500 |
| 2020 | 504 |
| 2021 | 520 |
| 2022 | 512 |
| 2023 | 513 |
| 2024 | 523 |
| 2025 | 528 |
Great Britain · Source: ONS, Average Weekly Earnings real terms level (series A3WX, CPIH-deflated, constant 2015 prices) · series A3WX · as of 2025 annual average (series retrieved 2026-08-17)
Young people’s prospects
Young people face a tougher, slower transition into stable work than previous generations — burdened by student debt, unaffordable housing, and a labour market with more precarious entry-level work.
Economic output by sector (2023)
The UK economy is overwhelmingly services-based. Manufacturing’s share has fallen from ~20% in 1990 to ~9% today, while financial services, professional services, and real estate have grown.
| Sector | Share of GDP |
|---|---|
| Real estate | 13.1% |
| Retail & wholesale | 9.9% |
| Manufacturing | 9.1% |
| Financial services | 8.8% |
| Professional & technical | 8.3% |
| Health & social care | 8.3% |
Source: ONS UK Economic Accounts 2023. Services now account for ~80% of UK GDP.
What the headline unemployment rate doesn't show
Unemployment is the most-quoted labour-market number, but it excludes several groups and averages that materially change what 'a healthy labour market' means.
Inactivity is not unemployment
Source: ONS Labour Force Survey
Youth unemployment includes full-time students
Source: ONS Labour Force Survey; VerifiedEvidencePanel above
Employment is not the same as secure or sufficient work
Source: ONS Labour Force Survey
Average pay does not describe the distribution
Source: ONS Average Weekly Earnings
What it means
- What the data directly shows
- Unemployment and economic inactivity have both risen over the past year while pay growth has outpaced inflation; long-term sickness is the largest single driver of the rise in inactivity since the pandemic; youth unemployment as published includes full-time students.
- What can reasonably be inferred
- A single 'the labour market is healthy' or 'the labour market is struggling' verdict would overstate the consistency of these measures — pay growth is a positive sign, rising unemployment and inactivity are not, and they are happening at the same time.
- What is disputed
- How much of the rise in long-term-sickness inactivity reflects genuinely worse population health versus changes in how conditions are assessed, diagnosed or reported is disputed among labour-market economists — this page's data cannot settle that question.
- A political judgement, not a finding
- Whether policy should prioritise getting the economically inactive back into work, improving job security and pay for those already working, or addressing the health conditions driving inactivity is a political choice about where limited resources go.
- What the evidence cannot establish
- This data cannot establish how many of the newly economically inactive would take a job if one were available and suitable, nor precisely how pay growth is distributed across the workforce (only the average is shown here).
What people often get wrong
What people often think
“Low unemployment means the labour market is healthy.”
What the evidence shows
Unemployment excludes anyone who has stopped looking for work. Economic inactivity (21.0%) is a separate, larger measure, driven substantially by long-term sickness at a record 2.8m people — a full picture needs both numbers, not one.
Source: ONS Labour Force Survey
What people often think
“Youth unemployment of 16% means 16% of young people who want a job can't find one.”
What the evidence shows
The published 16-24 rate includes full-time students looking for part-time or holiday work, who meet the official unemployment definition. The NEET rate (11-15%, not in education, employment or training) is the narrower, arguably more relevant measure for 'young people locked out of work'.
What can change this
Where there are meaningful levers, drivers or constraints on this picture.
Health-focused return-to-work support
Current policyLong-term sickness is the largest single driver of the rise in economic inactivity since the pandemic — health-focused employment support targets that specific driver rather than job-search requirements alone.
- Evidence:
- 2.8m economically inactive due to long-term sickness, as shown above.
- Expected effect:
- Could reduce inactivity among people who want to work but face health barriers, though this page does not carry a registry-verified evaluation figure for any specific programme.
- Time horizon:
- Years — health-focused interventions take time to show workforce effects.
- Trade-offs:
- Requires sustained NHS and employment-support capacity investment simultaneously (see the NHS page for the capacity constraints on the health side).
- Unknowns:
- How much of the sickness-driven inactivity reflects genuinely worse health versus assessment and reporting changes, as noted above.
Youth employment and training programmes targeting NEETs specifically
Current policyTargeting the narrower NEET measure (11-15%) rather than the broader youth-unemployment figure (16%, which includes students) focuses resources on young people genuinely outside education, training and work.
- Evidence:
- NEET and youth unemployment figures above, both ONS-published.
- Expected effect:
- Better-targeted programmes should, in principle, reach the young people most at risk of long-term labour-market exclusion.
- Time horizon:
- Years for a durable trend change.
- Trade-offs:
- Requires distinguishing NEET from broader youth unemployment in programme design and public communication, which this page's own myth panel above shows is often blurred.
- Unknowns:
- This page does not carry a registry-verified evaluation of any specific existing programme's effect on the NEET rate.
Job-quality and job-security measures beyond the headline employment count
External optionThe "changing nature of work" trends above (declining full-time share, growing part-time/temporary/gig work) are not directly addressed by policies that only target the headline employment rate.
- Evidence:
- ONS Labour Force Survey trends, as listed above.
- Expected effect:
- Job-security-focused measures (e.g. minimum-hours guarantees, gig-work classification reform) would address a dimension the employment count does not capture, though this page does not carry a registry-verified quantified effect for any specific proposal.
- Time horizon:
- Varies by specific measure.
- Trade-offs:
- Increased job-security requirements can affect employer hiring decisions in ways this page's evidence base does not quantify.
- Unknowns:
- The net effect of any specific job-security policy on overall employment levels is contested in the wider economic literature.
Local comparison
How this plays out locally: Portsmouth claimant count
Portsmouth: 4.4% · England: 4% · +0.4% vs England
+0.4 vs England
⚠ Claimants as a proportion of residents aged 16–64. This is NOT an unemployment rate — it counts people claiming unemployment-related benefits, which since Universal Credit includes some people in work. Two structural breaks matter: the 2013–2018 Universal Credit rollout widened who is counted, and April 2020 combined COVID with a further widening of eligibility. Portsmouth peaked at 7.4% in May 2020.
The 4.9% unemployment rate and 21.0% inactivity rate above are UK-wide, ILO-definition Labour Force Survey measures with no directly comparable Portsmouth-specific breakdown on this site — the claimant count above is a different, narrower measure (Universal Credit job-seeking claimants as a share of working-age residents), shown because it is the one labour-market figure genuinely comparable at this geography.
▸Detail data and technical notes
Unemployment, inactivity and real wages: ONS Labour Force Survey. People neither working nor looking for work. The rate rose after COVID on long-term sickness and fell back to 21.0% in 2025. Same Labour Force Survey caveat: official statistics in development since November 2023.
Youth unemployment (16%) and NEET (11-15%) are two different, non-interchangeable measures: youth unemployment includes full-time students seeking part-time work; NEET excludes anyone in education, so it is generally the narrower and arguably more policy-relevant figure for “young people locked out of work and training”.
Claimant count (Portsmouth/England comparison above): Claimants as a proportion of residents aged 16–64. This is NOT an unemployment rate — it counts people claiming unemployment-related benefits, which since Universal Credit includes some people in work. Two structural breaks matter: the 2013–2018 Universal Credit rollout widened who is counted, and April 2020 combined COVID with a further widening of eligibility. Portsmouth peaked at 7.4% in May 2020.