Education & Skills 
Rising numbers of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) were one of the defining themes of this year’s Labour Party Conference, with the Milburn review on the horizon. At Policy Connect, we held our own conference event with the Disability Minister, Sir Stephen Timms, focused on the interventions and innovations that can support disabled young people into employment. Among our panellists was Petra Wilton, Director of Policy and External Affairs at the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), who drew attention to the often overlooked role line managers play in helping young people not only get into work, but stay and progress once they are there.
Earlier this month, I spoke to Petra about her own path into leadership policy, what line managers need in order to support young people in their first jobs, and why adult skills and progression matter just as much for the opportunities open to young people.
From the classroom to leadership policy
Petra joined CMI more than 25 years ago, and has been involved in the development of apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships throughout that time. Along the way, drawn by the transformative role education can play, she stepped away from CMI to retrain as a primary school teacher. The experience gave her a close view of how children first begin to think about work and careers, and of how much those early years shape the pathways they go on to follow.
“Even in primary school, I could see young people already forming expectations about the world of work and starting to shape ideas about their future careers, well before they reached secondary school.”
It is a point our own research supports. The Skill’s Commission most recent report, Earning or Learning: A New Agenda for Youth NEET Reduction, examined the structural drivers of the youth NEET rate and what is required to ensure that all young people can access education, training, or meaningful work. It found that behavioural and developmental signals of later disengagement from school can be seen from as young as five, and research from the National Centre for Social Research shows that NEET risk is measurable from Year 6. For Petra, the same early foundations matter for leadership. Qualities such as empathy, confidence and communication, which she sees as central to good leadership, begin to take shape in these early school years and need to be nurtured as young people move through education.
Transitions into work
If those skills begin to form early, the point at which they are particularly tested is the move into work. Across our work on NEET reduction, transitions come up repeatedly as the moments when young people are most at risk of disengaging. Our conference panel considered transitions between education institutions, but Petra’s focus was on the move into work itself, where young people are often expected to pick up the social norms and unwritten rules of a workplace with little guidance.
“The question is how you build an understanding of what work is really like for young people who have never set foot in a workplace.”
She was critical of the familiar portrayal of young people as a ‘snowflake’ generation. In her view, what is sometimes read as a lack of resilience more often reflects the shrinking opportunities young people have to develop these softer skills in the first place, rather than any shortcoming in young people themselves.
“Young people face a lot of criticism, and much of it is unfair. It isn’t that they’re a ‘snowflake generation’. They simply haven’t had the opportunity to build those skills.”
For Petra, this is why earlier and more consistent exposure to the workplace, including meaningful work experience, matters so much. It is particularly important for young people whose families have had limited experience of employment, and for care leavers who may not have trusted adults around them to help them navigate the world of work. For those young people in particular, much of what the workplace expects will have to be learnt on the job.
The role of line managers
Recent policy announcements have included mentorship programmes to guide young people through these transitions, a development Petra welcomed. She was clear, however, that mentoring alone cannot carry a young person through their early working life. Once they are in work, that support needs to come from within the organisation itself, through managers who are equipped to provide it. Without this, young people risk facing a cliff edge at precisely the point external support falls away.
“External mentors are hugely important, but that support also has to exist within the workplace. Otherwise we may get young people into work, but we won’t keep them there, help them progress, or make it a genuinely valuable experience.”
Line managers are often best placed to guide a young person through their first months in work, and to recognise and develop their potential. Doing this well takes skills and training of its own, yet many managers have never received it. CMI research published in 2023 found that 82% of workers entering management positions have not had any formal management and leadership training. CMI describes many of these as ‘accidental managers’, people promoted on the strength of their technical expertise and expected to manage others straight away, without any formal preparation for the role.
“Young people are often meeting frontline managers who don’t yet have the skills to support them into their new roles. Managing and developing a young person’s performance well takes a distinctive skill set.”
The consequences of getting this wrong are significant, for employers as well as for young people. The same 2023 report found that one in three people, both managers and workers, have left a job because of a negative work culture, and that half of those who say their bosses are ineffective plan to quit within the next year. For a young person at the start of their career, a poor early experience of management could mean leaving work before they have had the chance to establish themselves.
Funding and access to management training
If the case for better management training is clear, access to it is not. Petra pointed to significant cuts to funding and programmes, which have left many people unable to take up this kind of upskilling. Businesses are also finding it harder to fill the gap themselves, particularly SMEs with limited time, capacity, and budget. A recent report by the Learning and Work Institute found that employers in the UK invested 29% less in training per employee in 2024 than in 2011. At the same time, individuals are becoming less likely to fund their own development. Many graduates are already carrying significant student debt, and taking out another loan, or taking time away from work, is increasingly out of reach.
“A colleague has just completed a Level 7 in strategic leadership. She told me she already had too much student debt to get any more funding, and without the apprenticeship route she simply couldn’t have done it.”
CMI has been working to expand provision, including upcoming pilots in which line managers and young people train together on essential leadership skills. Petra was clear, however, that further support and funding will be needed if this kind of training is to reach all businesses, not only those with the resources to invest. She also saw a role for devolution, with regional and local leaders well-placed to understand the skills needs of their own areas and to shape provision around them.
“I’m also hopeful about devolution. There’s a real opportunity to draw on local support networks and on people who genuinely understand their area.”
Progression and social mobility
The consequences of reduced investment in adult skills reach beyond how well young people are supported once they join an organisation. They also shape whether there are opportunities for young people to join in the first place. Opening up entry-level roles depends partly on existing staff being able to move up, and for people who have reached the limit of progression in a technical role, a management route can offer a way to keep progressing. This is one reason we have highlighted, through the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Skills, Careers and Employment (APPGSCE), the risks that reduced adult education funding poses to long-term social mobility. Directing funding and attention towards youth employment is crucial, but it cannot come at the expense of adult provision.
“The youth agenda is critically important, but progression doesn’t stop at 24, which is often when funding runs out.”
For Petra, progression is also a question of who gets to lead. She pointed to the continued under-representation of women and minority groups in higher paid and leadership positions, and to CMI’s recent work with Girlguiding, which found that many young women aspire to be leaders but that this aspiration drops significantly once they enter the workplace. Part of the answer, she suggested, lies in building people’s confidence to communicate what they can do, and to reflect honestly on where they still need to develop.
Wider pressures on the workforce add to the case for investing in adult skills. With rising social care spending, keeping people in work for longer is becoming more important. As technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) is making workplaces faster-changing, adult education and upskilling, including leadership training, will be essential to keeping the workforce adaptable.
“Without continuous professional development, we risk stalling the economy. We’re only as good as our people and their talent.”
Looking ahead
Across our conversation, from the early school years in which leadership qualities first take shape, to a young person’s first months in work, to the progression routes that keep people moving later in their careers, Petra kept returning to the same point. The support people receive once they are in work matters as much as the support that gets them there, and line managers are often where that support either holds or falls away. For Petra, this is why management and leadership need to sit at the heart of conversations about unemployment, productivity and growth. As a practical first step, she would like to see leadership skills and training embedded across the existing range of skills programmes for both young people and adults.
“I think it would be quite transformational to say we’re valuing that management skillset, embedding accredited line management training into government funded youth employment programmes.”
As the Skills Commission continues its inquiry into apprenticeships, building on Earning or Learning, what happens after a young person enters the workplace will remain central to that work.
You can read our Earning or Learning report here: https://policyconnect.org.uk/report/earning-or-learning-a-new-agenda-for-youth-neet-reduction/
Find out more by contacting Rhiannon Tuckett-Jones (rhiannon.tuckett-jones@policyconnect.org.uk).
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