This story first appeared in The Yorkshire Post
A young person can grow up within sight of a major local employer yet leave education with no clear route to a job there. Yorkshire should be a place where young people can build a future without having to leave home to find it. A workplace may be only a few miles away but the distance between seeing it and envisioning a career inside it can feel worlds apart.
That distance should concern every Yorkshire business. We cannot assume that the opportunities we advertise are understood or feel attainable simply because they exist nearby. Creating jobs matters enormously, but those jobs will remain out of reach for some young people unless we help them understand how to pursue them.
Youth Futures Foundation’s 2025 analysis placed Yorkshire and the Humber among England’s worst-affected regions for disengaged youth. The rate of individuals not in education, employment or training (NEET) is currently 15.1 per cent, compared with 13.1 per cent across England. Nationally, the latest Office for National Statistics estimates put the number of NEET 16-to-24-year-olds at 981,000. Yorkshire must ask whether young people can see a practical path into the jobs being created around them.
As we await Milburn’s final recommendations, businesses should already be asking what their own response should be. His review is examining how to successfully bring NEETs into the workforce, and its findings should matter to every employer in the region. The Government can lay the foundations, but it is contingent on businesses to connect local opportunities with local schools, colleges, charities and community organisations to support long-term partnerships. Those organisations reach young people who might otherwise fall through the cracks. The rising generation should not be left to navigate this system alone, and Yorkshire needs businesses, schools, local leaders and community groups to work as one local system to tackle this challenge together.
Preventing young people from becoming NEET means engaging them whilst they are in their most formative years at school before uncertainty becomes disengagement. A careers fair can provide a useful introduction, but a single conversation cannot carry the whole journey. Pupils need sustained contact with employers and mentors to ask pertinent questions and receive guidance regarding next steps.
For a young person with little workplace experience, knowing what to expect from an interview can make all the difference in how they approach it. Practising with someone who works locally gives them a chance to ask questions, make mistakes and try again before a job depends on it.
That is the value of Drax’s Education Ambassadors, where colleagues work with pupils in Selby, Goole and surrounding villages on the practical steps between wanting a job and feeling equipped to apply for one. Employers must recognise that recruitment can feel intimidating and familiarity with the process can build confidence.
That familiarity needs to begin long before a first job application. Introducing children to the world of work in primary school gives them time to explore what interests them, with careers advice, mentoring and practical experience building on that foundation as they grow older.
The same principle sits behind the Drax Foundation’s support for SKILLZ CIC, which has engaged nearly 2,000 young people at risk of becoming NEET in North Yorkshire. Visits to Drax Power Station put careers conversations in the context of an actual workplace. But a visit alone is not enough. Pupils need time and meaningful conversations to explore how the opportunities they see connect with their strengths and interests. We hear directly from schools we work with who point to better careers awareness and stronger links with local employers. These are encouraging signs, but the real measure of success is whether young people can build on that confidence to move into training or work.
Sustaining that support takes more than one employer, which is why Drax and Up for Yorkshire established Selby Connected to bring employers, public bodies and community organisations into the same conversation about what local people need. Businesses can offer jobs, skills and workplace insight, while community partners understand the barriers young people may be facing day to day. Used well, that connection can turn separate efforts into a joined-up route from education into work.
Yorkshire businesses do not need to build a new programme from scratch. They can work with schools and community partners to give young people regular contact with employers, practical experience and a clearer understanding of what local jobs require. What truly matters is continuity. Each conversation should lead to a practical next step.
Fundamentally, we must listen to young people’s concerns when designing support for them.
Yorkshire’s young people should be able to look at the businesses around them and see a future for themselves.
