The missing link between GCSEs and jobs

Stable GCSE results expose a bigger challenge: the journey from school to work.

The dominant trend for this year’s GCSE results is one of stability, with a slight improvement among 16-year-olds.

In England, 23.1% of GCSE entries from 16-year-olds received grades 7 to 9, up marginally from 23% last year. The proportion achieving at least grade 4 rose from 70.5% to 70.7%. Results are also slightly ahead of the 2019 pre-pandemic results - the third successive year of gradual improvement. Boys have continued to close the attainment gap with girls, while stronger performance in mathematics appears to reflect a genuine improvement in attainment rather than changes in grading.

But national averages conceal widening regional differences, with London (28.6%) increasing the gap with the North East (17.7%) to 10.9 percentage-points for GCSE grades 7 to 9 – a divide now greater than before the pandemic.

Those resitting and achieving grade 4 in English (21%) and Maths (16.4%) provide another warning, with results falling since last year.  This suggests that repeated retakes leave too many carrying the label of failure throughout life, harming their prospects for employment and continued learning.

Some commentators have claimed that an obsession with GCSE results highlights the 67% who achieve good results while ignoring the 33% who do not. However, the picture is not so stark, as increasing numbers of pupils - around one-third of 16-year-olds - are achieving a Level 2 vocational qualification.

This is the context for Andy Burnham’s proposed reform of education from age 14. His plan would allow pupils to combine a continuing core of English, mathematics and science with technical education, work experience and sustained contact with employers.

The intention is right. England has spent too long equating educational success with a predominantly academic pathway. Putting technical education on an equal footing will require high-quality, industry relevant provision. This will not succeed if it is presented as the alternative route for pupils from poorer places or as a fast track to lower-paid, lower-skilled employment. Young people and employers need qualifications that are portable beyond their immediate locality, alongside access to the opportunities generated by local economic strengths. The objective should be a common educational entitlement delivered through different academic and technical combinations that can provide foundations for future learning and progression in work.

Reforming GCSEs must not be confused with solving the NEET crisis.

The latest available estimate found 1.012 million 16- to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training in the first quarter of 2026 - 13.5% of the age group and 89,000 more than a year earlier. Of these, 400,000 were unemployed and actively looking for work, while 613,000 were economically inactive. ONS data therefore points to at least two related but different problems: young people who cannot find work and young people who have become detached from the labour market altogether.

Education is unquestionably part of the explanation. Yet qualifications alone cannot create employment. Nearly 30% of young people who are NEET already have good GCSEs or their equivalent; more than 21% have a Level 3 qualification and 15% have a degree. The government’s own Young People and Work review concludes that the demand side matters as much as the supply side. The economy has lost many of the entry-level jobs - the Work Foundation cites a 49% decline over the last decade.

The wider labour market is weakening and employment has declined particularly in the retail, hospitality and administrative roles that traditionally provided young people with a foothold. Smaller employers are also responding to higher labour and operating costs by limiting recruitment, while automation threatens to reduce entry-level office work further.

A more business-friendly, pro-entry environment is needed. With policies that makes it easier and less risky for employers - particularly SMEs - to hire, train and support an inexperienced young person. Targeted hiring incentives, properly funded apprenticeships, shared training arrangements, simpler recruitment and stronger local brokerage, and targeted tax-credits for employers investing in skills. Public bodies, including councils, the NHS and universities, should also use their position as major local employers to create more first jobs and apprenticeships.

Alongside this, Britain needs active labour-market policies that intervene before unemployment becomes long-term inactivity: permanent youth hubs, personalised employment and health support, transport assistance, job guarantees, paid work placements. Mental health provision is indispensable: nearly half of NEET young people now report a disability, with mental ill-health the principal driver.

The solution, then, does not reside exclusively in either education or economic growth. Better education without jobs produces qualified unemployment. Growth without active support may help those already close to the labour market while bypassing those who have become detached from it. What Britain lacks is a functioning system connecting schools, colleges, health services, employment support and employers.

Burnham’s reforms could become an important part of that system. But changing what young people study at 14 will achieve little unless, by 18 or 21, there is a real job, apprenticeship or further learning opportunity waiting for them.