Based on research from the University of York and the UK government’s own NEET data, One Degree has saved the economy over £50mill since 2009.

Government data

Overall ages 16-18

  • Participation in education or apprenticeships was down 0.9 percentage points to 81.2%.
  • The not-in-education, employment and training (NEET) rate has decreased and is one of the lowest on record at 6.4%.
  • Of the remaining 12.3% of the population, 4.4% were in wider training and 8.0% in employment.

Ages 16-17 (in compulsory education or training)

  • 90.5% participating in education or apprenticeships, down 0.5 percentage points.
  • 5.0% NEET, the highest rate since 2013.
  • 2.9% in wider training and 1.5% in employment.

Age 18 (first year post-compulsory education or training)

  • 62.2% participating in education or apprenticeships, down 1.5 percentage points.
  • 9.3% NEET, a decrease of 2.9 percentage points and the lowest on record. 
  • 7.3% in wider training and 21.2% in employment (the highest rate since 2007).

Read more here.

York University Research

This report confirms the economic scale of the “public issue”. The current most conservative estimate of the cost to public finance of young people being NEET, between the ages of 16 and 18, is nearly £ 12 billion largely made up of benefit payments and tax losses as people are unemployed. An even larger amount, well over £21billion, is our most conservative estimate of the “resource cost”, reflecting lost productivity to the economy and welfare to individuals and families. These are very significant costs. Yet, the higher estimates are of a public finance cost of over £32billion and a resource cost of £76billion, amounting to the budget of a small to a medium government department. Much of this report is about how much waste can be avoided

These costs are significantly higher than the estimates we produced in 2002. Yet, when we calculated the unit public finance cost (the average cost of each young person who was NEET) this had increased only slightly between 2002 and 2009, from £52K to just over £56K. The large increase in the aggregate public finance cost is, therefore, mainly due to the increase in the total number of young people who are NEET, an increase from 160K to 208K. The increase in resource costs, however, is a different matter. The total estimate in 2009 is more than double that estimated in 2002 and so is the unit cost (£104,312), also significantly more than the unit cost estimate in 2002 of £45K. We suggest that this reflects changes in wage differentials and big differences between in-work wages and out-of-work benefits multiplied again and again over the forty or more years of working life.

Read more here.

One Degree Results

Read our 2022 Programme report here.

Read our 2021 Programme report here.

Read our 2020 Programme report here.

Read our 2019 Programme report here.

Read our 2018 Programme report here.

Read our 2017 Programme report here.

Read our 2016 Programme report here.

See our 2015 Attainment Factors here.

See our 2014 Attainment Factors here.