The youth unemployment and inactivity challenge in the UK is stubborn, with almost one million young people in the UK not in education, employment or training (NEET). Through the Youth Guarantee, the Government has an opportunity to meaningfully address this challenge.

Zoya Sarfraz, Youth Futures Foundation’s Future Voices Group Alumnus, and member of the Youth Guarantee Advisory Panel with DWP and DfE, outlines some of the major barriers faced by young people when navigating the employment system, and proposes how the Youth Guarantee can help to dismantle them. Youth Futures Foundation was a strategic sponsor of Learning and Work Institute’s Employment and Skills Convention 2025.

Job centres and wider employment support

One of the biggest challenges impacting young people is the lack of overall support available to them. This includes job centres, which are very clinical, stigmatised and not a safe space for young people. In their current form, job centres can be a source of anxiety for young people. This anxiety is compounded by the lack of third spaces, organisations or programmes available for young people – particularly those in rural areas.

Through the Youth Guarantee, the Government has the opportunity to define what a safe space looks like for a young person and what kind of support they need overall to ensure that they are able to access long term employment. In doing so, job centres can be changed into an accommodating environment for young people so they don’t fuel this anxiety, and instead, empower young people to address it effectively.

Lack of careers advice/trusted adults/mentors

Another prominent barrier facing young people is the absence of effective careers advice and/or mentors. The lack of information surrounding what post-16 options are available, and a trusted adult who can help you to navigate this important transitional period, continues to hamper young people’s employment prospects.

Many of my friends achieved strong grades in their GCSEs. Yet, due to a lack of mentors or a trusted adults, left sixth form after just three months due to the academic pressure. They later became NEET and engaged in antisocial behaviour.

Another big opportunity of the Youth Guarantee is to help young people to feel more empowered to navigate the system after finishing school, confident that it is the right decision, and supported if it is not.

Ethnic discrimination

For me, a really discouraging barrier has been racial discrimination. Researchers at Nuffield College’s Centre for Social Investigation found in 2019 that Pakistani applicants needed to send 70% more applications than white British applicants; and in Youth Futures’ Discrimination and Work report, almost half of respondents (48%) said they had faced some level of prejudice or discrimination when seeking to enter the workplace.

Personally, I have only received an interview if the organisation uses a blind application system. I am hopeful that the Youth Guarantee will encourage employers to address ethnic disparities and hold them to account.

Lack of transparent hiring processes

This brings me to the lack of accountability for employers to implement transparent hiring processes. The frequent use of video interviews enables employers to discriminate against young people on superficial reasoning such as their appearance, accent or ethnicity. The lack of human interaction and consideration is dehumanising, impersonal and can intensify young people’s anxiety.

Youth Futures’ Discrimination and Work report also found that almost a third of respondents (30%) who are not in employment, education, or training (NEET) felt that prejudice or discrimination in hiring practices was the single main challenge for young people entering the workplace.

I have personally received eight rejections after the video interview stage. In some cases, the AI which the organisation uses has emailed me an automatic report stating that I am a strong fit for the position and I have performed very well compared to other candidates.

My hopes for the Youth Guarantee

The Youth Guarantee has the potential to erode many of the long-standing barriers faced by young people by providing them with access to a job, training or an apprenticeship.

As a member of the Youth Guarantee Advisory Group led by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education, I am pleased to be able to feed directly into the policy, by sharing my lived experiences navigating the youth employment system as a young person. I am also pleased that the Government has chosen to put young people’s voices at the heart of youth employment policymaking.

Designed correctly, with the voices of young people helping to shape it, it could have a tremendous, positive impact on both economic growth and on vulnerable young people’s wellbeing.