Why young people are backing a career in the trades

Something is shifting in how young people picture their future.

Nearly half of 16 to 25-year-olds in the UK are now weighing up a career in the trades over a desk job, according to Checkatrade. Eighty per cent say AI has made them more anxious about the security of office-based work. Checkatrade’s chief executive, Jambu Palaniappan, points to job security, more than pay, as the real draw toward vocational routes and apprenticeships.

That’s a meaningful change in direction. Office work used to be the safer bet, the trades a fallback. For a growing number of young people, that logic has flipped.

The interest is real. The system supporting it hasn’t caught up. Only 12% of trade businesses took on an apprentice last year, even as Britain will need well over a million more tradespeople over the next decade.

The government is starting to respond. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has announced new technical education routes for 14-year-olds, covering manufacturing, clean energy, life sciences and construction, part of a wider push to reach the more than a million young people currently not in education, employment or training.

That number is exactly what worries Shevaun Haviland CBE, chief executive of the British Chambers of Commerce. Speaking on our podcast, she pointed to a structural gap behind it: “there are now over a million young people who are not in education, training or work, and are further away from the workplace than has ever been the case. Schools are measured on Ofsted measures of exam results… not a single Ofsted measure on work readiness. So it’s not surprising that young people are turning up to work not ready for it.”

Closing the gap between interest and opportunity will take more than young people changing their minds. It will take schools, employers and government moving at the same pace as the young people already choosing this path.

What do you think is really driving this shift? We’ll be exploring the future of work in more depth at our Future Forum Flagship Event in King’s Cross this October.