Self-employment impact evaluation
Exploring what works to support young people at risk of violence into employment, education or training.
The number of UK young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) remains stubbornly high at close to a million. For those who do have jobs, they can be insecure and low-paid. For young people who struggle to find work, such as those with caring responsibilities, health conditions or disabilities, the flexibility of self-employment could be a viable alternative route, yet knowledge about how to do this well is limited.
For young people who are NEET, the flexibility of self-employment could be a viable alternative route to move into sustainable and secure work. Yet few of the existing self-employment support schemes for young people have robust evidence of their effectiveness.
Youth Futures Foundation partnered with the Institute for Employment Studies and University of Westminster to conduct three strands of scoping work:
- A Targeted Rapid Evidence Assessment (TREA) based on UK and international literature
- Secondary data analysis
- Consultations with young people and employers
Together, the research offers insights on:
- Young people’s views and intentions about becoming self-employed
- The characteristics of young people who opt for self-employment, and how prevalent this career option is
- How self-employed young people get on in the labour market
- The barriers and enablers to young people becoming self-employed
- The current support available to young people who are self-employed and its effectiveness, including best practice
- How to identify and reach young people who may benefit from self-employment
You can download the three IES authored outputs from this page. To view the project hub, please visit the Youth Futures Foundation website here.