New research commissioned by Elevate Employment Services reveals that almost half of senior decision makers in UK small and medium-sized businesses (44%) believe most or all young people aged 16-18 are leaving education without the skills and attitudes needed for work — raising serious questions about the effectiveness of current education-to-employment pathways and the level of investment in employability support.

The polling, based on a survey of 500 senior SME decision makers across the UK, found that 36% believe most school leavers are not work-ready, with a further 8% saying almost no young people leave education prepared for employment. By contrast, just 1% of employers think almost none leave without being ready for work.

The findings come as the ONS publishes its latest quarterly NEET figures tomorrow (28 May), expected to show the number of young people aged 16-24 not in education, employment or training remaining close to one million. The employer polling adds a significant new dimension to that picture – revealing that the problem does not begin when young people become NEET, but long before, at the point they leave school.

Elevate Employment Services, which has delivered employability, skills and training programmes across the UK for more than a decade, believes the issue is not a lack of ambition among young people. It is a system that is chronically underfunded, too fragmented and too difficult to navigate for those who need it most. The organisation’s own Study Programmes for 16-19 year olds who are NEET are currently achieving 93% positive outcomes – demonstrating that when the right support is in place, young people do succeed.

Elevate is calling on Government to invest in the employability support system and act on three urgent priorities:

1. Bring back DfE Traineeships for 16-24 year olds – restoring a vital pre-employment pathway scrapped in 2023, which supported up to 17,400 young people a year and consistently delivered strong progression into employment, apprenticeships and further study
2. Fix the 16-19 funding crisis – the current lagged funding model is leaving providers with an impossible choice between turning young people away or delivering provision without funding, at a time when NEET figures are approaching one million nationally
3. Expand commissioning opportunities for specialist employability providers, whose track record in supporting people facing complex barriers consistently outperforms in-house alternatives

Ian Ross, Chief Executive Officer of Elevate Employment Services, said:

“This should be a wake-up call. We all know the truth – young people are being failed by a system that is not set up to support them, and now we have the evidence to prove it. Nearly half of employers are saying school leavers are not ready for the workplace. That is not a minor concern at the margins – it is a damning verdict on where we are as a country.

Young people are not the problem. They want to succeed, and when the right support is around them, they do. Government now has a choice: act on this evidence and invest in the programmes that work, or keep letting a generation down.”

The research is based on a survey of 500 senior decision makers in SMEs across the UK, exploring employer perceptions of young people entering the workforce, the barriers they face in securing employment, and businesses’ willingness and capacity to hire over the next 12 months.