Youth unemployment rate in the UK 2000-2025

The youth unemployment rate for those aged between 16 and 24 in the United Kingdom was 14.5 percent in January 2025, compared with 14.7 percent in the previous month. After falling to just 9.2 percent in July 2022, the youth unemployment rate has increased at pace and is almost as high as it was following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Nevertheless, youth unemployment is lower than in the early 2010s, when youth unemployment reached a high of 22.5 percent in November 2011.

Almost one million UK youth not in work or education

In the fourth quarter of 2024, the number of people aged between 16 and 24 that were not in education, employment, or training (NEET) was 987,000, the highest figure in more than ten years. One of the main reasons for this increase has been the general rise in people being on long-term sick leave since the COVID-19 pandemic, which reached a peak of 2.8 million at the end of 2023. While older adults are still more likely to be on long-term sick, the number of younger workers on long-term sickness has increased more rapidly. In the ten years between 2014 and 2024, the number of 16 to 24-year-olds economically inactive for this reason increased from 138,000 to 271,000.