Building brighter futures through insight and action. Survey now open, have your say!
Open from 12 November 2025 to 12 January 2026.
The National Youth Agency is calling on youth workers across the country to take part in the 2025/26 Workforce Survey, a crucial opportunity to shape the future of youth work in England.
Youth Work Week was a powerful moment, showcasing the incredible outcomes youth workers achieve every day. Now, we need to build on that momentum. By completing the Workforce Survey, you’re giving us the evidence we need to advocate for better support, training, and investment across the sector. Your context, insights and voice are essential.
Past Workforce Surveys have already shaped the sector, providing the evidence that informs our understanding of workforce sufficiency and guides the development of the reformed qualifications framework. These insights have fed directly into NYA’s policy work with the Government, influencing discussions on long-term investment and the imminent landmark National Youth Strategy. By completing this year’s survey, you help us build on that foundation, deepen understanding of the issues facing youth workers today and advocate for a workforce that is equipped, supported, and responsive to the needs of young people.
We know you’re busy doing amazing work. But this survey takes just a few minutes and the impact lasts years. If you work with young people, help us turn your lived experience into lasting change.
Why It Matters
Your insights will directly inform:
- Government policy: The data feeds into our discussions with policy makers at a regional, national and international level informing policy and programme development. The information you share comes at a critical time as the Government is soon to launch its defining National Youth Strategy, as we push to secure long-term investment in youth services.
- The new qualifications framework: The National Youth Agency is working with government and sector leaders to reform youth work qualifications, and your input is essential. Your experience will help us build a skilled, diverse workforce and strengthen the quality, consistency, and reach of youth work across England. Together, we can remove barriers, create clearer pathways, and secure youth work’s future as a valued profession.
- Advocacy efforts: NYA uses this evidence to push for better funding, training, qualifications and infrastructure in national forums and cross-sector policy discussions.
- Sector-wide change: From mental health support to violence reduction, your experiences help highlight where youth work is making a difference and where more support is urgently needed.
What We’re Hearing
Last year’s survey of 1,300 youth workers revealed:
- A critical shortage of trained youth workers
- Rising demand for targeted support around mental health, safeguarding, and crime prevention
- A shift away from open access provision toward specialist interventions
This year, we are delving deeper to understand even more about you as individuals, how you feel in your role, and if your job also meets your needs.
Whether you’re full-time, part-time, freelance, voluntary, or in a leadership role, if you work with young people, your voice counts.
Let’s make sure youth work is recognised, resourced, and ready to meet the needs of young people now and into the future.
Workforce Survey Report 2024/25
Key findings from the Workforce Survey
The NYA’s 2025 Workforce Survey Report reveals that youth work is now predominately delivered through the voluntary sector (69% compared with 61% last year). There has also been a decline in youth workers paid on terms and conditions set by the Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) (24%).
The report provides a clear picture of a dedicated workforce responding to demand for specific areas of support including: poor mental health (83%); safeguarding and online harm (67%); and crime and anti-social behaviour (58%). The data suggests that youth workers are more likely to deliver targeted youth work than provide conventional ‘open access’ services.
Other key findings from the workforce survey
- There’s a correlation between length of time in the sector and professional qualifications – with almost half (48%) of those who’ve been in youth work for a decade or more having a professional youth work qualification.
- More than half of respondents have a JNC qualification (Level 2 or Level 3 Youth Support Worker) (58%) and just over a third of respondents are qualified to level 5 or above (equivalent to a degree and conferring the title Youth Worker).
- Over half of youth workers (53%) are regularly working in an educational setting, 30% in a local authority/council (typically alongside social care services), 24% in a health setting and 23% in a sports setting.
- Youth workers were having to spend more time than in previous years responding to the impact of poverty, in particular meeting food, hygiene and clothing needs.
- The overwhelming majority (83%) of respondents say that they are likely to be in a youth work role within their organisation in a year’s time, with 84% per cent stating they will stay with their current organisation.
Review of vacancies reveals low pay and unstable contracts
NYA’s research shows that youth work is now predominantly delivered through the voluntary sector (69%), yet there is a significant shortage of professionally trained practitioners. A lack of stable career pathways deters new entrants, further deepening the workforce crisis.
Viewed alongside NYA’s review of jobs advertised on key recruitment platforms in April and November 2004, and February 2025 the Workforce Survey evidences the urgent need for a pipeline of suitably qualified practitioners – which the NYA is addressing through its proposed changes to the qualifications framework.
The vacancy research highlights that a quarter (25%) of youth work jobs pay below the national living wage, with nearly a third (29%) being temporary or zero-hour contracts. The average salary of £21,084 falls far below the UK national average of £36,920.
Other key findings from the vacancy research include:
- Nearly a third (29%) of the youth work jobs (143 in all) are temporary roles or ‘zero hours contracts’, typically lasting 6 – 12 months.
- Almost half (49%) of advertised roles did not require a specific youth work qualification
Key report recommendations include
- We recommend that DCMS commit to developing a cross-departmental youth sector workforce strategy within the upcoming National Youth Strategy and work with the NYA and its allies to set out plans to attract more entrants to the sector, ensure access to quality training and formal qualification, and improve pay and conditions for the workforce.
- We recommend that DCMS and the Department for Education collaborate with the NYA and its VCSE partners to reform the national youth work qualification framework and enhance and build on the existing skills of the youth sector workforce whilst also providing viable training progression for all youth workers.
- We recommend that the DCMS and the Department for Education collaborate with the NYA and its VCSE partners to enhance the existing campaigns and promotion of youth work as a highly rewarding career and profession for everyone.
- We recommend that Skills England urgently remove the known barriers to the uptake of youth work apprenticeships and non-apprenticeship training through the Growth and Skills Levy reform to increase access to quality ‘in-work’ training.
- We recommend that DCMS include a detailed minimum sufficiency of paid youth workers for local areas to strengthen the existing statutory duty for youth services and ensure the appropriate funding to meet this requirement.
- We recommend that all providers of youth provision, including Young Futures Hubs, A&E Departments, Custody Centres and Pupil Referral Units, ensure that employed youth workers have essential skills training aligned with the Youth Work National Occupational Standards and ensure opportunity to access Continuing Professional Development
- We recommend DCMS encourage youth sector workforce development as a specific deliverable in the upcoming Local Youth Transformation Pilots. This should include a commitment to attracting new entrants to the sector and upskilling and training the existing workforce as part of a youth sector workforce strategy.
- We recommend that the Department for Education review the implementation of the Working Together to Safeguard Children Statutory Guidance. Through this it should ensure that Local Safeguarding Partnerships are collaborating with local Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations to acknowledge the role of local youth workers and promote quality and effective practice that safeguards young people’s futures.
Higher Education Institutions Monitoring Report for 2023/24
The NYA’ 2025 Annual Monitoring Survey of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) highlights the changing university landscape. Most significantly, it shows that seven new apprenticeships degree programmes were launched in 2023/24, giving an uplift of 15% on student numbers since the previous year driven by the addition of 149 apprentices.
Other key findings are that only 14% of new students are under 21, the lowest proportion over the last decade and conversely, almost one third of new undergraduates (32%) are over 34 – almost double that of 2022/23 (18%) – almost entirely attributable to the apprenticeship learners.
