The Future for Young People in Wales

Following the recent Senedd election, Wales stands at a defining moment in how it supports and invests in its young people.

Recent reports, including a recent report commissioned by the Department of Work and Pensions, highlight that young people are facing a “perfect storm” of pressures: a weaker entry-level job market, cost of living challenges, and the lingering impacts of the pandemic, which caused many to miss out on education and work experience. As a result, many young people are now entering adulthood facing significant barriers to securing stable employment or training pathways and are therefore at increased risk of becoming NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training)

As a young person myself, unfortunately, none of this comes as too much of a surprise to me.

For years now, my generation have been highlighting how hard it has become to do things that were once taken for granted by previous generations: affording university, securing stable work, accessing opportunities, or at the very least, feeling a sense that hard work will pay off.

While the data within this report primarily focuses on England, Wales is not immune to these problems and in many areas, such as GCSE attainment, progression to university, levels of NEETness and overall lifetime wages, they are more pronounced. The UK report, for example, warns that the national NEET rate currently sits at 12.8% and risks climbing above 16% over the next five years, yet Welsh Government figures published in April 2026 show that Wales is already ahead of that, with the NEET rate for 16- to 24-year-olds reaching 17% in December 2025.

Therefore, it feels late in the day for governments to be recognising the scale of the problem which makes it all the more important that policymakers take a swift and meaningful approach to tackling it.

As a new government, Plaid Cymru have the unique ability to do that – to take charge and tackle the systematic failure that is resulting in a generation who, despite having talents and aspirations, are likely to have a life worse than their parents. That means recognising that:

• Wales faces unique pressures and challenges and even within Wales, challenges for young people vary from place to place. Increased child and rural poverty, lower educational attainment means policymaking cannot just rely on UK data.
• Issues such as the cost of living are not just affecting adults but are directly shaping the lives and futures of children and young people. While child poverty is rightly recognised as a serious issue, the long-term impact of current cost pressures on the cohort now moving into adulthood is not yet fully acknowledged.
• Young people need to be meaningfully involved in shaping the solutions to their problems. There are many young people who want to be involved in policymaking and rather than treating them as contributors, policies on both a local and national level should involve young people as collaborators. There is a big difference.

Consequently, there needs to be a bringing together of the various services and systems that work with and affect young people, a drawing on the breadth of experience of young people and organisations across Wales and the creation of an overarching, cross government youth strategy to inform the decisions of the Welsh Government over the next four or more years. Importantly, this strategy should not be focused on one area such as youth work, as has been the case in recent approaches, but should instead take a genuinely holistic view of the challenges facing young people across education, employment, housing, health and wider society and inform future policies.

Drawing on the best bits of the National Youth Strategy for England, our Welsh strategy should be informed by a nationwide research project, gathering the opinions and insights of young people from all areas and backgrounds in Wales. It should draw on the breadth of knowledge, insights and experiences of Wales’ youth landscape, including voluntary, community and uniformed organisations. The resulting strategy should be genuinely co-produced, focused on practical action that responds to the realities young people are facing, and should link and inform other Welsh and UK Government strategies and legislation such as the Well-being of Future Generations Act, the UK Government’s Child Poverty Strategy and the Curriculum for Wales.

This is where the role of organisations like ScoutsCymru become increasingly important.  Across Wales, Scouting provides young people with real, practical ways to build skills, confidence and leadership outside of traditional education. It provides young people, many of whom come from deprived urban and rural areas, with low cost, high impact opportunities that empower young people to not just survive but thrive. ScoutsCymru also provides young people with opportunities to shape Scouting both locally and nationally through the ability to become trustees and participate in feedback where they can actually see the outcome.

Working for ScoutsCymru, I know we stand ready to support in both the planning and delivery of policies that will better support young people across Wales, ensuring that future decisions are grounded in the real experiences, needs and ambitions of the generation they are designed to serve. Ultimately, if Wales is to meet the scale of the challenges facing young people today, I believe it will require not just stronger policy, but a shared commitment across government, communities and organisations like ours, to work together in building a fairer and more supportive future for every young person.