Britain’s Broken Data is Failing Our Young People - It’s Time to Fix It
4 min read
From rising youth unemployment to failing welfare systems, our inability to connect and utilise the data we already collect is leaving vulnerable young people behind - with lifelong consequences.
The scandal isn’t that we lack data - it’s that we fail to use it properly.
The true measure of a country’s competence is not in how much information it collects, but in how well it listens to what the data is saying.
On this measure, we are falling short - nowhere is this clearer than the rise in young people who are NEET: Not in Education, Employment, or Training. In 2021, NEET levels were at a record low. But following the pandemic’s shockwaves and a bruising economic climate, they have risen to their highest point in over a decade. This should trigger national alarm. The longer a young person remains NEET, the greater the toll - on their mental health, future earnings, and the social fabric of this country.
However, our ability to respond is crippled by outdated systems, inadequate collection and poor-quality data. The Labour Force Survey, once a gold standard, has become worryingly unreliable - in cases a single question received only a handful of responses but still influences policy major conclusions. This is not just poor collection, but a failure to treat data as essential infrastructure.
The UK is rich in government datasets covering education, employment, taxation and welfare - but they are trapped in silos, unable to speak to one another.
Consider the Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset, which tracks students from school into the labour market. It has huge potential, but lacks critical context like household income, which is key to understanding disadvantage. Linking it with existing datasets like the Parent Pupil Match, would build a real picture of intergenerational inequality and tailor policy accordingly.
We need not reinvent the wheel. The US has shown what’s possible by integrating anonymised tax records with education data to produce a granular understanding of life outcomes. We need the political ambition and commitment to do the same.
Too often, policies launch with fanfare but poor evaluation. Initiatives like Sure Start were assessed through retrospective analysis of proxies like geography, instead of embedding data collection from the outset. Others, like the drive to decentralise government jobs, remain unmeasured in their impact on social mobility, and often struggle with ambiguous definitions.
We also fail to recognise how real life complicates neat policy labels. People can misdefine themselves - not out of dishonesty, but because life is messy. A young woman caring for siblings while juggling insecure work wouldn’t count as NEET, yet she’d miss out on support she badly needs. Our data must be designed not just with technical accuracy, but with empathy and realism.
Nowhere is this more urgent than in the case of young mothers. The average age of first-time mums in the UK passed 30 a few years ago - driven partly by professional aspirations but also by the eye-watering cost of childcare and housing. Britain has the highest childcare costs in the OECD. This often creates an impossible bind: work doesn’t pay once childcare is factored in. Some are trapped - unable to study, retrain, or progress - because the system punishes their ambition. These realities remain invisible if our data systems fail to account for them. If we are serious about closing opportunity gaps, we must start with truth-telling. That means treating data as national infrastructure: properly funded, properly connected, and built to last. It must be easy for policymakers to evaluate what works and what doesn’t.
It must be possible to track not just where people start, but where they end up.
And it must be done with the public’s trust - ensuring transparency, accountability, and ethical safeguards.
It’s time for a new data deal: one that respects people’s complexity, reflects the country we live in, and enables action. Data is not just a technical asset. It’s a democratic one.
