Youth unemployment has featured prominently in the national news recently.
The national picture
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, between December 2022 and the end of 2025, 333,000 16-to-24 year olds lost payrolled employment – a 4.3% decline.
This fall in youth employment is almost as sharp as following the 2008 financial crash and the Covid pandemic.
The largest fall in youth employment is among 16 to 17-year olds, with job vacancies at their lowest in five years. There is a sharp decline in entry-level jobs, such as Saturday and holiday working opportunities.
According to the Office of National Statistics, as of December 2025, 957,000 16-to-24 year olds were NEET (not in education, employment or training). This is a huge, one-third increase since December 2021, when 719,000 young people were NEET.
At The Friary
At The Friary, we run a comprehensive Raising Aspirations Programme which includes a wide range of activities that run all the way through the school. This includes: Focus Weeks on careers, destinations and apprenticeships; employability workshops; mock interviews with local business leaders; UCAS evenings and visits from local universities, along with presentations by apprenticeship providers to students and parents. The school also provides students will access to Unifrog, a comprehensive destinations platform which helps young people find and apply for training and education opportunities throughout the UK.
Our careers provision is externally audited by The Careers & Enterprise Company in order to assess how we perform against other schools in meeting the Gatsby Benchmarks. The Gatsby Benchmarks are a national framework of eight key guidelines that define the best careers provision in secondary schools.
Careers provision is given a high priority in school. Our certified Careers Leader is a member of the school’s senior leadership team; we employ a Careers & Aspirations Mentor to support this work and also access the expertise of an external Careers Advisor.
As a result, destinations data for students leaving The Friary is strong at both age 16 (Year 11 leavers) and 18 (Year 13 leavers). You can find more information about our careers programme here.
Looking Ahead
Although destinations data for students leaving The Friary is strong, we are always looking to improve and adapt to ensure best practice.
Consequently, from next year, work experience will be introduced at Key Stage 4, where students in Year 10 will have a week’s formal experience in a workplace outside school. This will begin with students who are currently in Year 9. More detailed information about this will follow.
From next year, Key Stage 3 students will also have a week’s worth of workplace experience. This will be spread over Years 7-9 and will take place via trips and visits. These trips and visit will support aspects the school curriculum whilst allowing students to visit real workplaces and think about their career options in real-world contexts.
Support and information for helping your child with their career decisions can be found here.
Mark Drury, Headteacher, said: “Students leaving education are facing more competition to get that first good job on the career ladder. Through Parents and Partnership Evenings, Pathways and other events, the school has always tried to keep ahead of the game by making our families fully aware of what can be done now to make the future easier. Whilst data suggests the school has been pretty successful at this, no-one can rest on their laurels in what is certainly a more challenging environment.”
