Member Spotlight: Vocational education and NEETs

Nearly one million young people in the UK are not in education, employment or training. The Milburn review, published in May 2026, warns this could reach 1.25 million within five years - and identifies the absence of accessible vocational routes as a structural cause, not a symptom. Only 22% of 18-21-year-olds in the UK are in vocational courses, compared with 35% in the Netherlands and Denmark, where technical education is embedded from the age of 14 and co-designed with local employers. The review is clear that supply-side reforms - better CVs, more job search support - will not solve a problem rooted in the design of the system itself. The question for combined authorities is whether place-based vocational approaches can fill the gap, and what conditions make that possible.

What our members are doing

Greater Manchester Combined Authority: the MBacc

With around 4,000 young people aged 16-17 currently NEET across the city-region, GMCA launched the Greater Manchester Baccalaureate in September 2024 - the UK's first integrated technical education framework organised around seven sector gateways aligned to Greater Manchester's fastest-growing industries, including digital, health innovation and advanced manufacturing.

The MBacc is not a new qualification but a framework that brings together existing academic and vocational qualifications, structured work experience and direct employer engagement into a single coherent offer. Young people can begin engaging with MBacc pathways at 14, with defined choice points at 16 and 18. The central design logic is that technical education must sit on equal footing with the academic track - addressing the cultural hierarchy the Milburn review identifies as one of the root causes of the NEET crisis.

In its first year, the MBacc secured over 700 new T Level employer placements, launched the Beeline platform connecting more than 4500 young people to live job opportunities across all seven gateways, and piloted the Equalex work experience framework - committing to at least two weeks of curriculum-embedded workplace experience across Years 7 to 11. A partnership with the Raspberry Pi Foundation delivered a new Certificate in Applied Computing to 92 young people across seven schools, with courses including machine learning and AI for students.  

The 2030 ambition is an MBacc offer in every Greater Manchester school, college and specialist provision. The programme's distinctive feature is that it is built around the local economy, encompassing the sectors and employers that exist in Greater Manchester, rather than generic national frameworks. This is what the Milburn review argues is missing at scale: vocational provision connected to real labour market geography and dynamics.

West Yorkshire Combined Authority: the West Yorkshire Promise

In June 2026, Mayor Tracy Brabin launched the West Yorkshire Promise - 'a guarantee that no young person will leave education without first setting foot in a workplace'. The Promise commits to work experience for every young person by 18, alongside access to apprenticeships, vocational skills training and mental health support, as part of the authority's newly announced Region of Learning and Creativity Strategy, with a target to halve the 16-17 NEET rate from 6% to 3% by 2035.

The launch of the new Promise and strategy deliberately took place in Bradford, where in 2022-23, Bradford's 16-17 NEET rate was 6.8%. Through focused local partnership working across schools, colleges, employers, joining up support services, and successfully tracking vulnerable young people, that figure has since fallen to 4% and below the national average of 5.8%. Mayor Brabin, who sits on the Milburn review expert panel, has committed to reporting on the Promise's outcomes to the review, with the intention that the model becomes a blueprint for devolved authorities nationally if it delivers.

The Promise is not a standalone employment programme but rather a long-term plan to increase access to opportunity across the whole region. It sits alongside the Combined Authority's £12 million Employment Support programme - providing vocational training, digital skills and sector-specific qualifications aligned to local employer demand for those who are NEET or inactive - and the existing Skills Connect offer, which has supported over 90,000 adults into training since 2021.

Key lessons

Both member examples point to three translatable lessons for member officers working on NEET prevention.

• Embedding employer co-design from the start is crucial. Both the MBacc and the West Yorkshire Promise are built around local employer relationships, not generic national sector frameworks. The employer is not a downstream partner who only validates and implements the programme once it is designed - they shape it. Officers designing vocational routes should map local labour market demand before commissioning provision.
• Connecting work experience to the curriculum, not to individual initiative. The Milburn review finds that young people most at risk are least likely to organise their own work experience. Both members are structuring workplace exposure into the curriculum across key stages, removing the dependence on parental and personal networks that currently determines who gets it.
• Joining up vocational provision with health and confidence support. Bradford's success in reducing NEET rates was not delivered through a skills programme alone but through coordinated local partnership across education, employment and wider support. Officers should refrain from designing vocational programmes in isolation from the mental health and confidence barriers the Milburn review identifies as the primary reason young people cannot take up the opportunities that exist.