Blazing a trail: how housing associations can help young people into employment

One in eight young people are NEET (not in education, employment or training) – that’s nearly one million people, and it’s set to rise. Six in 10 of these young people have never had a job. This is the grim reality presented in the interim report from Alan Milburn’s Young People and Work Review, which warns that ‘we are at risk of a lost generation’.   

How can housing associations help address this crisis?  

At whg, we launched our Work Matters 4 Young People programme in November 2025 as part of our wider Social Justice Strategy, focusing on areas in our communities with the highest levels of youth unemployment, working in partnership with Walsall Council and with funding from the government’s Youth Guarantee Trailblazer Scheme.  

The programme uses an evidence-based social prescribing model and is delivered by a small team comprising of a Youth Coordinator and four Trainee Social Prescribers, who are whg customers and have lived experience of being unemployed as young people. This, combined with our position as an anchor organisation in the community, means we work with underrepresented groups of young people who face barriers to support services.   

In just six months, we’ve supported 62 young people who were NEET. Of these young people, 30% have experience of the care system and 16% have a disability, both of which can create further barriers to employment. One young person has gained an apprenticeship in engineering, while another has progressed to a second stage interview to join the RAF. Another 12 have moved into sustainable employment, 12 have achieved Level 3 accredited qualifications, 16 are being supported to take part in paid work experience, and 12 have been supported to access services to help their mental health and wellbeing.  

The impact of this work has created £1.6m of social value benefits to the young people involved, and to wider society. We’ve now been successful in securing additional funding to extend the programme into a second year, and we’re working with young people to reflect and review year one and co-design year two.   

The success of the programme is clear. Housing associations can provide a home as a building block for a good life, allowing young people to put down roots and make a successful transition into adulthood. We can also ringfence opportunities for young people who live in our homes and employ them in entry level roles with opportunities to gain qualifications; use retrofit funding to train young people in green skills; and ensure our developers employ young people from the estates we are regenerating.   

We’re keen to scale-up this work even further if additional funding were made available by the government – helping us to reach even more young people and hopefully help transform more young lives.