The cost of youth unemployment to the UK economy over the next decade has been estimated at £28 billion. The costs to young people themselves are just as dire – exposure to youth unemployment can have a life-long impact on an individual’s earnings and mental health.
Equipping young people with the skills that employers need is key to tackling youth unemployment and promoting the UK’s future prosperity. In this report, we identify what we call a double skills gap: a lack of both technical and transferable skills that are crucial in the workplace.
While the employers we spoke to during our research explained that both sets of skills were important, it’s the lack of transferable skills that are the most concerning. The drive to net zero and the growth of AI have put a premium on the kind of skills that cannot be automated, making their absence particularly alarming for the employability of young people.