Youth Guarantee Trailblazer Scheme

Youth Guarantee Trailblazer Scheme is sponsored by Department for Work and Pensions. A £45 million scheme providing targeted support to thousands of 18 to 21-year-olds across England, matching them to job or training opportunities as part of the Youth Guarantee.

Youth Guarantee trailblazers: what you need to know - Youth Futures Foundation Youth Guarantee trailblazers: what you need to know Home Blog Youth Guarantee trailblazers: what you need to know Last month, the Government officially launched the eight pilot Youth Guarantee trailblazers, announced in last year’s Get Britain Working White Paper.

Their subsequent funding extension in the Spending Review cements them at the heart of the Government’s youth employment policy agenda. Youth Futures Foundation’s place-based change policy lead, Ryan Howsham, outlines what this means for young people in these areas and what Youth Futures will be looking out for.

The long-awaited launch of the eight pilot Youth Guarantee trailblazers , and their funding extension at the Spending Review , comes against the backdrop of stubbornly high national numbers of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) – affecting almost a million young people across the country . But what exactly are the Youth Guarantee trailblazers, and what are they hoping to achieve ?

A welcome first step for a stubborn challenge The Government committed to establishing a Youth Guarantee in England ensuring that “every young person aged 18 to 21 has access to further learning, help to get a job or an apprenticeship”. The initiative partially adopts the ‘ Young Person’s Guarantee ’ – a set of policy proposals put forward by the Youth Employment Group (YEG) in 2023 .

With £45 million in funding, shared bet ween eight ‘trailblazer’ areas across England this year , the focus is on providing better “coordination, engagement and accountability” across the existing employment support, education and training on offer to young people. The trailblazers will also test new forms of support and outreach for 18 to 21-year-olds who need it most, including those facing health-related challenges.

The re ar e multiple contributing factors behind the high numbers of young people not earning or learning, including the lack of access to apprenticeship opportunities, poor transition support and the growth in mental-ill health amongst many others. We also know y oung people and their individual circumstances and experiences aren’t homogenous, with many facing far more barriers who will need more support t han others.

W e also know that disadvantage and marginali s ation can be , and ofte n is , compounded . O ur research with the National Centre for Social Research reveals that a young person’s likelihood of being NEET increases with each NEET ‘ risk factor ’ they experience .

"Impetus’ recent Youth Jobs Gap report finds that a young person in Hartlepool who is eligible for pupil premium is 146% more likely to be NEET than the average young person in England. Given these differences, solutions must be highly contextualised to specific needs and challenges, meaning it is vital that they are locally-led and informed by reliable data."

Ryan Howsham, Youth Futures Foundation To add to the complexity , where a young person lives also matters ; youth employment challenges vary hugely in different places . NEET rates vary significantly by region , from 8. 5% of young people in the South East to 15.

8% of young people in the North East , according to Youth Futures Foundation analysis of the Labour Force Survey (Jan-Mar 2025) . These disparities are driven by a range of factors, within each region , and come together to affect outcomes for young people.

For example, Impetus’ recent Youth Jobs Gap report f inds that a young person in Hartlepool who is eligible for pupil premium is 146% more likely to be NEET than the average young person in England. Given these differences, solutions must be highl y contextualised to specific need s and challenges , meaning it is vital that they are locally – led and informed by reliable data.

The Government has positioned trailblazers as an opportunity to develop and test ‘place-based’ approaches that respond to this challenge, initially in a select number of regions. Led by Mayoral Combined Authorities, the eight trailblazers will be delivered in the following areas: Cambridgeshire & Peterborough, What have they got planned?

We are slowly learning more about what to expect from each trailblazer, including a mixture of system change and programmatic interventions. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions kicked off the trailblazers with a trip to a careers fair in Liverpool, where the trailblazer will provide vulnerable young people with a range of support including free travel passes, mental health support and money advice.

There are other interesting approaches too: Cambridgeshire & Peterborough have set up a Youth Forum to guide delivery of the trailblazer in the region – putting young people at the heart of programme design. Tees Valley has proposed systems change and programmatic interventions to build the evidence base and connect at-risk young people to support, as well as programmes to directly support local unemployed young people.

Central London is focusing on supporting care-experienced young people, who face some of the greatest barriers to opportunity. Their trailblazer plan brings together 12 London local authorities to focus on providing this specific cohort with access to employment, education and training. We look forward to exploring learnings from each of the trailblazers’ ideas as they continue their implementation.

The chal l enge for trailblazers and the importance of data and evidence Given the scale and persistent stubbornness of the youth unemployment and inactivity challenge, and the speed at which they have been asked to develop and deliver their Youth Guarantee offers, trailblazers have an important but tough job.

Grounding their approaches in robust evidence will be essential if they are to be a positive first step towards the development of a national Youth Guarantee. This requires a data led approach to identify need, both in terms of the young people each trailblazer is supporting and the local labour market in which they are seeking opportunities.

Youth Futures has produced a range of tools and resources to help local and national policymakers work towards this, including: Youth Employment Toolkit – our summary of evidence on effective youth employment interventions, helping ensure every pound invested delivers the greatest possible impact. Data Dashboard – our tool to explore youth labour market data across England, including insight into job vacancies and NEET risk factors.

Evidence of what works in systems change interventions – research into effective policies and practices that drive systems change, with a focus on youth employment. As they move through their first year, trailblazers will rely on the best available evidence to maximise their funding and plan for future interventions.

Trailblazers we have spoken to are acutely aware of the challenges of this one-year delivery phase – such as robustly evaluating their impact over this short period – but are thinking creatively about how to capture the best learnings.

We are particularly interested in exploring how these learnings from each pilot can complement the existing evidence base to inform the extension to the current eight trailblazers and hopefully a future, national rollout of the Youth Guarantee based on what works.

As the What Works Centre for youth employment, we are continuing to collaborate with both national and regional policymakers to support the trailblazer areas over the next year and beyond. To find out more, please contact me on ryan. howsham@youthfuturesfoundation.

org or contact the team using the form at the bottom of this page.

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