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Our tenth Youth Jobs Gap report reveals how multiple layers of disadvantage affect young people’s chances of not being in employment, education or training (NEET).
May 2025
Our 2024 manifesto is a collection of evidence-based ideas aimed at transforming the lives of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. It’s also a call to action, urging the next government to place these young people at the forefront of their policy agenda.
March 2024
This paper emerges from a broad series of conversations, discussions, and consultative sessions and is shaped by a range of experts, organisations, and perspectives. On this basis, we propose a transformational offer for our young people: The Young Person’s Guarantee.
September 2023
A package of reforms that must be implemented by the Government in order for the National Tutoring Programme to reach the thousands of children who have fallen behind at school.
July 2022
Impetus believes fair access must be at the centre of the sector-wide debate about whether the UK higher education system should move to a system of post-qualification admissions (PQA) system. The access gap between young people who are free school meal eligible and their better-off peers is at its highest since 2007. Yet the two proposals on the table risk massive upheaval that would distract from the biggest barriers to access - like attainment- rather than addressing them.
September 2021
Over the past few months, the Youth Employment Group (YEG) has been working together to address the challenges posed by the COVID crisis on young people’s prospects. The YEG’s new paper, ‘Levelling Up for young people: Building an Opportunity Guarantee’ brings together this collaborative effort, establishing a three-stage approach which is broken down between now and early 2022.
July 2021
the Youth Employment Group secretariat believes that there is a compelling case to extend the Kickstart scheme beyond December 2021. This policy paper sets out five reasons why an extension to Kickstart would be the right decision for young people around the country.
February 2021
This submission to the 2020 Comprehensive Spending Review provides solutions that secure a place for young people at the centre of the government’s post-COVID recovery agenda and contribute to the nation’s future economic growth.
November 2020
Supporting young people’s employment opportunities – in the immediate and medium term – will be key to ensuring that the UK makes a rapid and full economic recovery from COVID-19. This short briefing note has been prepared by the lead organisations of the Youth Employment Group: Youth Futures Foundation, Impetus, Youth Employment UK, The King's Trust and the Institute for Employment Studies.
May 2020
English and maths are often described as the most important subjects in education, but just how important are they? The ninth report in our Youth Jobs Gap series reveals for the first time the extent to which English and maths GCSEs lead to better outcomes for young people.
April 2020
The eighth report in our Youth Jobs Gap series, this one focused on London, finds that the rate of young people out of education, employment and training in London is consistently higher than the national average. But it's not all bad news: young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in London are more than twice as likely to go onto higher education than their peers in other regions.
February 2020
Benchmarking Resurgo shows that the issues raised in our Youth Jobs Gap series are not inevitable. Young people who take part in Resurgo's Spear Programme move into employment at twice the national rate, showing that Resurgo Spear gets more young people into work and gets them there quicker.
February 2020
Ahead of the general election on 12 December 2019, we're asking all political parties to give disadvantaged young people a fair chance, in primary through to higher education and into the labour market.
November 2019
Impetus and KPMG held a roundtable in Birmingham to launch Youth Jobs Gap Research Briefing 5: The Employment Gap in the West Midlands. This paper summarises these discussions and presents recommendations for action in the West Midlands to stakeholders to work on together over the coming months.
November 2019
Impetus and KPMG held a roundtable in Manchester to launch Youth Jobs Gap Research Briefing 4: The Employment Gap in the North West. This paper both summarises these discussions and presents recommendations for action in the North West to stakeholders to work on together over the coming months.
November 2019
In our Youth jobs Gap series, we have looked at NEET rates both nationally and regionally. This report looks longer-term, at what happens when a young person becomes NEET, and how this affects disadvantaged young people compared to their better-off peers.
September 2019
Our Youth Jobs Gap series looks at NEET rates, higher education, and apprenticeships across the country. Our reports also look at differences between regions and within regions. This fifth report looks at the West Midlands region.
July 2019
The first three reports in the Youth Jobs Gap series have looked at NEET rates, higher education, and apprenticeships. These national reports have also looked at differences between regions – but differences within the regions are often greater than the differences between regions. This fourth report looks at the North West region – drilling down to the local authority area level, including the combined authority areas of Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region.
June 2019
This Youth Jobs Gap report uses the Longitudinal Education Outcomes data to reveal how disadvantaged young people are accessing and progressing in apprenticeships, including differences between regions in England.
June 2019
Higher Education is one of the most topical issues in politics, with the UK government’s post-18 education and funding review (the Augur review) due to report back imminently. For the first time, this Youth Jobs Gap report analyses the Longitudinal Educational Outcomes (LEO) data, showing the clearest picture of disadvantaged young people and their access to higher education to date, including differences between different regions in England.
May 2019
This first report from Impetus' Youth Jobs Gap series shows that there is an employment gap between disadvantaged young people and their better-off peers. This report draws on newly available government data to explore the employment outcomes of young people in England.
April 2019
The Youth Jobs Gap research series uses new Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data to present new insights into disadvantaged young people’s transition from compulsory education into employment. The technical details in this document are important to fully understand how we've used LEO for the Youth Jobs Gap series.
April 2019
If the current rate of progress on access to higher education continues, the access gap will eventually be closed in the year 2148. We set out our response to the OFS's new approach to regulating access and participation.
December 2018
With the government’s review of post-18 education ongoing, and most of the debate seemingly centring on tuition fees, we must remember that widening participation work is essential to helping more disadvantaged young people access higher education.
June 2018
Magic Breakfast recently won a £24 million tender to deliver breakfast provision to children at 1,770 new schools in poor areas across England – a big increase from the 485 schools they currently serve. Impetus has been working with Magic Breakfast to tackle the challenge of how they can maintain their impact at a larger scale. This impact briefing reveals how.
April 2018
Who should be entitled to free school meals? With the introduction of universal credit to replace several benefits, the Department for Education has recently asked this very question. This policy briefing details our response, including concerns about the quality of data in the future
March 2018
Disadvantaged young people are half as likely to university compared to their better off peers. This briefing explores how universities can help improve school attainment and widen access to university.
December 2016
What does ‘disadvantaged’ young people mean? There are different ways of measuring disadvantage – from free school meals to household income. We use ‘Ever 6 FSM’ – pupils who have been looked after, in care, or eligible for free school meals in the past six years.
October 2016