Britain’s Young People are Losing Faith in their Future

Young people today are entering a world in upheaval. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, record-breaking temperatures, and the accelerating rise of AI is creating a world that feels genuinely harder to navigate. Closer to home, the economy is stagnating, unemployment is rising, and poor mental health is becoming commonplace. It is young people who are bearing the brunt.

New research from IPPR shows a striking shift in how young people aged 16 to 21 see their futures. In 2010–12, more than half of young people, 55%, felt highly confident they would succeed in life. Today, that has fallen to fewer than two in five. The picture on unemployment is equally stark: in 2010–12, three in four young people felt they had little chance of becoming long-term unemployed; by 2023–25, that had dropped to two in three. And at the sharper end, the change is even more pronounced. The share of young people who believe they are highly likely to face long-term unemployment has more than tripled – from 2% in 2015 to 7% in 2024. The share who feel they have little chance of succeeding in life has done the same, rising from under 2% to nearly 6%. These are not the fluctuations of a bad year. They are a structural shift in how a generation understands its own prospects.

This matters enormously. When young people do not believe that effort leads to reward, they are less likely to invest in education, training, or civic life. Home ownership – once the cornerstone of stability and a stake in society is drifting out of reach for millions. The consequences of that are not just economic. They are social. A generation that does not expect to own a home, hold a stable job, or see its prospects improve is a generation at risk of disengaging. The social contract between generations is fraying.

We need to do better. The Milburn Review concluded plainly that the state is not working for young people – across health, education or social security. Many young people feel anxious about their futures, worried that making a mistake will lead to failure, that second chances don’t exist.

One young person we spoke to said:

“I’m just so fearful that I’ll end up just wasting my life away and just not accomplishing something myself.”

Young people deserve support, second chances, and to be optimistic about their future. The government will need to prove to the next generation that the state can work for them, that the currently fractured post-16 offer can provide real opportunity, that health services can support them through hard times and that a good job is within reach.  

By Jamie O’Halloran, senior research fellow at IPPR