PwC UK Economics Team · 2025
The 2025 PwC Youth Employment Index finds the UK has fallen to 27th place among OECD economies, marking the steepest decline in the G7, as youth unemployment has risen to 15.3% and economic inactivity among young people has hit a 20-year high of around 3 million. The report finds no statistically significant link between AI adoption and overall youth unemployment, though early warning signs are visible in the IT and business services sectors where entry-level and graduate roles have declined sharply. One in eight young people are now classified as NEET — the highest rate in a decade — and the report estimates that reducing regional disparities in NEET rates could add £13–26 billion to UK GDP. The analysis draws on ONS Labour Force Survey data, OECD statistics, and an econometric model to assess the relative roles of cyclical labour market cooling and AI adoption in driving these trends.