Impetus (with NIESR) · 2025
This report analyses the NEET (not in education, employment or training) rates of approximately 4 million young people aged 18–24 in England using the government's Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) dataset. It finds that disadvantaged young people remain roughly twice as likely to be NEET as their better-off peers, and that qualifications are the strongest protective factor—each step up the qualifications ladder roughly halves the chance of being NEET. However, the report's central finding is "compound disadvantage": young people who are from disadvantaged backgrounds, have low qualifications, and have SEND are almost three times more likely to be NEET than average. Significant ethnic disparities are also identified, with variations within broad ethnic categories often larger than between them, and young people from Roma, Irish Traveller, and Mixed White and Black Caribbean backgrounds facing the highest NEET rates.