Young people not in education, employment or training NEET UK - February 2025

28th February 2025

There was an increase in the number of young people aged 16 to 24 years not in education, employment or training (NEET) in October to December 2024. The total is currently estimated to be 987,000, up from 877,000 in October to December 2023.

Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates have been affected by increased volatility, resulting from smaller achieved sample sizes, meaning that estimates of change should be treated with additional caution; we recommend using them as part of our suite of labour market indicators alongside workforce jobs (WFJ), Claimant Count data, and Pay As You Earn Real Time Information (PAYE RTI) estimates.

The LFS continues to be the sole source of data for unemployment, economic inactivity, and self-employment, and provides a range of breakdowns that are only possible from LFS data.

It is likely that some of the recent movements in LFS estimates are being affected by the increased sample size and change in data collection methods taken over the last year, in addition to any underlying changes in the labour market.

LFS estimates are weighted to 2022 mid-year population estimates for periods from January to March 2019; headline UK seasonally adjusted series before this have been modelled, but other series have a discontinuity at this point.

Total young people who were not in education, employment or training (NEET)
An estimated 13.4% of all people aged 16 to 24 years in the UK were not in education, employment or training (NEET) in October to December 2024. This is up 1.3 percentage points, compared with October to December 2023, and up 0.3 percentage points on the previous quarter.

An estimated 14.4% of young men (up 1.2 percentage points on the year) and 12.3% of young women (up 1.3 percentage points on the year) were NEET. There were 987,000 young people who were NEET in total, an increase of 110,000 on the year. This increase was caused by both young men, with an increase of 56,000 on the year, and young women, with an increase of 53,000 on the year. Of the total number of young people who were NEET, 542,000 were young men and 445,000 were young women.

The total number of people aged 18 to 24 years who were NEET was 907,000, up 90,000 on the previous year.

The percentage of those aged 18 to 24 years who were NEET was 15.8%, which was up 1.3 percentage points on the year and up 0.3 percentage points on the quarter.

Readthe full ONS report HERE