Falling through the gaps: are disabled youth included in the government’s plan for growth?

With youth employment at an 11-year high, our next generation is facing a cliff edge: if they can make the jump, all’s well, but if they fall into the gap between school and employment, it may be a long time before they can climb back out. For young people with a disability, who make up, on average, 12% of youth , the gap is wider and more perilous. There’s evidence that childhood Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) services are not linking up with adult employment services, failing to create the kind of bridge that disabled youth need to successfully transition to adulthood and contribute to the economy.

The recently-published Keep Britain Working report reveals that disabled Britons are more than twice as likely to be locked out of work than their non-disabled counterparts. The report’s holistic, rather than preventative, approach to workplace health will be a critical step in the right direction, though it does not address the challenges faced by disabled youth specifically. At the Labour Party Conference in September, Rachel Reeves announced a Youth Guarantee - that young people not in education, employment or training will be offered a job if they are unemployed for 18 months. They stand to be stripped of their benefits if they do not accept. Will this ultimatum act as the springboard, or will it be a push from behind? 

At the Growth and Reform Network we are focussed on supporting places to deliver inclusive local economic growth. Inclusive growth seeks to provide opportunities for all – including young disabled people – to both contribute to and benefit from growth. We know that access to good employment can benefit peoples’ mental and physical health, which in turn, eases the pressure on public finances. But its not clear that the Youth Guarantee will increase access to good quality employment opportunities for young disabled people in practice.  

The ambition of the Youth Guarantee must contend with the economic reality of low vacancy rates 

Like many policies, the Youth Guarantee and associated benefit reductions will be felt differently across the country. Some places see as many as 19% of people between the ages of 16 and 24 with a disability. Services for SEND youth are likewise varied across the UK, and provisions for over-16s are discretionary by local authority.

Evidence from a House of Commons report reveals that support to SEND youth over 16 is limited. Employment and training are not currently seen as priorities within SEND policy, yet at the same time, disabled youth are overlooked in training, employment and further education programmes. We can look at two studies from opposite sides of London to see how this is playing out at the individual level. In a 2023 study done by Healthwatch Richmond, over one third of parents with SEND children thought that their children had not been well-prepared for changes in their stages of education and work. Inadequate support, communication gaps, and difficulties implementing Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP) were cited as problem areas. A 2025 study done by Healthwatch Tower Hamlets found that the average age SEND children started planning for their transition to adulthood was 17, despite the Inclusion Strategy’s recommendation that it be 14. A minority (19%) of interviewees had an employment support plan in place.

But work readiness programmes cannot create jobs that doesn’t exist. The elephant in the room: there simply aren’t enough entry-level vacancies. It will be difficult to guarantee offers when there are 4.5 NEET youth for every entry-level job vacancy. According to the Office for National Statistics, there were 948,000 people between the age of 16 and 24 who are NEET as of June 2025, while Adzuna reports just 209,778 entry-level vacancies in July 2025. 

Source: Office for National Statistics (ONS), released 17 July 2025, ONS website, statistical bulletin, Vacancies and jobs in the UK: July 2025 and https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/08/26/entry-level-jobs-slump-to-five-year-low-as-reeves-jobs-raid/

The threat of stripping benefits to unemployed youth blames individuals rather than addressing structural issues and it will hit disabled youth harder. What we need instead is place-specific work engagement programmes that are sensitive to the local market to ensure that disabled youth are offered jobs that match their abilities. 

Local and regional government have a key role to play in supporting disabled youth

One way forward is to empower local business to improve their accessibility through small grants to install infrastructure such as lifts and ramps. Another way is simply to streamline approval process for infrastructure that small businesses pay for. In my time as an accessibility mapper, I heard from many business owners who had been denied permission to install a wheelchair ramp at their entrance, and one cinema told me they’d been waiting years for the council to approve their planned lift.

Transport provisions are also holding people back. There is no national statutory requirement to provide transport to education/training to SEND youth over the age of 16, and local authorities may not have the budget for specialised transport. Here lies an opportunity for combined authorities in their Local Transport Plans to manage travel concessions for the benefit of this cohort. Both the Transport Select Committee and the House of Commons recommend extending bus passes to under-22-year-olds, which could extend inclusive growth to a wide swath of economically precarious youth. Combined authorities can also use their skills and employment powers, including access to adult skills funding, to address the needs of young disabled people. 

Cross-tier collaboration between all levels of government will be essential to pinpoint where and how to spend these budgets. In the short term, better signposting of resources is one cost-effective method to improve services.

Young people living with a disability can make an important contribution to the economy 

Most importantly, all tiers of government need to change their mindset around disabled people and especially disabled youth. The transition from childhood to adulthood is frightening for everyone, but doubly so for disabled teenagers. We cannot afford to write off young people with disabilities, who have dreams, ambitions and the desire for independence, as unworthy of attention. Too often, these young people are set back due to failures within the system, leaving them in a doubly disadvantaged position as they begin adulthood. The disadvantage can compound over time, forcing people to rely on state help when they neither want to nor would need to, had accommodations been made earlier. It’s clear that early intervention pays dividends for everyone.

In some cases, good practices have already been piloted successfully. Cardiff’s Flexible Supported Employment Pathway successfully guided students with additional learning needs into 12-month work placement programmes. The Growth and Reform Network works in partnership with agencies across the UK to develop high-quality evidence about what works, formalising and publishing that evidence for our members to learn from so that nobody has to reinvent the wheel. 

Inclusive growth means leaving behind the idea that disability is a burden to be mitigated and prompts us to celebrate disabled people as valuable members of the community.