Skip to main content

Commission calls for targeted action to improve young people’s life chances in ‘left-behind’ places across the UK 

  • Home
  • Commission calls for targeted action to improve young people’s life chances in ‘left-behind’ places across the UK 
Published: 11 Sep 2024

The government should adopt a place-based strategy to improve young people’s life chances in the areas with the lowest social mobility prospects in the UK, the Social Mobility Commission says today. 

The SMC’s State of the Nation 2024, which analyses 203 local authorities, shows that former mining, industrial and ship-building areas, as well as rural and coastal areas, continue to have the lowest opportunities across the UK. Many of these post-industrial areas are in the north-east and north-west of England, including Barnsley, Hull, North East Lincolnshire, Northumberland, Rochdale, Sunderland and Wakefield. But the report also shows there are few prospects for young people in coastal and rural areas such as Cornwall, Isles of Scilly, Durham County Council, Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders. 

These two groups contain some of the UK’s worst areas for young people’s social mobility. Young people who grew up in these areas tend to end up with lower qualifications and lower pay, and are more likely to be in working-class jobs than young people from the same socio-economic background who grew up in parts of the country with better social mobility.

Many of these areas also tend to have high levels of child poverty, low levels of parental educational achievement and fewer parental professional jobs, including Hull, Middlesbrough, North East Lincolnshire and Stoke on Trent it reveals. 

Alun Francis, SMC chair, says that the policy focus on social mobility should now shift much more to helping those stuck in “left-behind places” with few opportunities.

He calls on the government to tackle the regional disparities in the UK as a priority by implementing a place by place strategy tailored to local needs.

He argues that policy makers need to start recognising and explaining the reasons behind differences in outcomes before they can develop effective interventions.

“There is no one-size-fits-all approach to improving opportunities, as each place has its own particular challenges,” said Mr Francis. “A common theme is economic opportunity and the quality of jobs across the country, but there are also deeply entrenched issues around educational underperformance among families and communities which are more acute in some places than others.” 

The key to changing the situation was a combination of innovation and economic growth – which was more about opportunities “at the top” – supported by robust place-based initiatives to address the lack of opportunity at “the bottom”. But how this was done would vary place by place, he said.

The Commission is now developing its own framework for action and is urging ministers to adopt locally-led approaches to address social mobility. It intends to work with regional and local leaders to help them draw up place-based and evidence-led social mobility policies, tailored to local needs. The SMC will use its research from State of the Nation 2024 and its Data Explorer Tool to support council leaders to improve opportunities locally and evaluate the impact of their initiatives. 

The SMC’s interactive Data Explorer Tool allows policy makers and the public to find out how their region fares on a range of social mobility indicators. The Commission hopes this granular detail, which gives a more nuanced picture of geographical inequalities, will be used by local and national leaders, and departments in Whitehall to inform devolution deals. Mr Francis will meet metro mayors over the coming weeks to discuss new ways of working with them. “Improving social mobility should be at the core of devolution deals, as part of a wider place-based strategy for increasing opportunities,” said Mr Francis.

The State of the Nation 2024 shows that there are a few places with better social mobility for young people in the North and Midlands, such as in and around Manchester and Warwickshire, within commuting distance of Birmingham. But the best opportunities for high qualifications and professional well-paid jobs are still in London and the Home Counties, with their easy transport links to the capital. This largely follows the switch to professional service jobs, finance and high-tech jobs in the south, as the traditional industries in the north wound down. Good transport links to big cities also appear to be key. 

There are also marked geographical differences in educational attainment for pupils eligible for Free Schools Meals. FSM eligible pupils in rural areas such as Cornwall and Cumbria, or in other areas of the North West, such as Lancashire and Cheshire are also less likely to achieve passes (grade 5 or higher) in GCSE English and maths. 

“This analysis shows that young people’s prospects for upward social mobility remain highly unequal, and in some respects have deteriorated after the pandemic. Also worrying is the enduring lack of opportunity for young people in former mining, manufacturing and shipbuilding areas of the UK. New and sustained/able policy interventions will be needed if we are to improve the prospects for younger generations,” said Anthony Heath, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Nuffield College, Oxford University.

The State of the Nation, which monitors social mobility across the UK, also shows interesting findings split by sex, and ethnicity, as well as revealing progress in university entrance and in hourly pay for those with the lowest level of qualifications. 

Key other findings from SON:

  • At age 5 there is a consistent gap of around 20 percentage points in attaining a “good level of development” between pupils eligible for free school meals and those not eligible. But at key stage 4 (aged 14 to 16) the gap has widened, partly due to the effects of the pandemic. 
  • Among children, disadvantaged girls do better than boys at school. At age 11, 47% of disadvantaged girls reach the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, compared with 41% of boys.
  • FSM-eligible children of Chinese background perform better than even the national average for non-FSM children at 11 and 16 years. At age 11, 71 % of FSM-eligible children of Chinese background reach the required standard.
  • About 30% of children in the UK live in relative poverty (after housing costs). 
  • Unemployment levels among young people were the lowest they have been since 2014 – at 11% in 2022. But this means young people may find it more difficult to find a job, as job vacancies have fallen from 0.9 to 0.7 vacancies for each unemployed person between 2022 and 2023
  • The socio-economic background (SEB) university enrolment gap has narrowed over time. In 2014, young people from higher professional backgrounds were almost 4 times more likely to enrol at university than those from lower working class backgrounds. In 2022, they were around 2 times more likely.
  • Overall, young people with low qualifications may have narrowed the earnings gap with more qualified peers. There has been a 16% increase in real hourly earnings for people with below GCSE level qualifications between 2014-2016 to 2020-2022.

— ENDS — 

Notes to Editors: 


Explanation of the indices: 

State of the Nation 2024 analyses social mobility drivers and outcomes across 203 upper-tier local authorities for the first time. This is done across several composite indices, which include: 

Promising prospects 

This index examines social mobility prospects for young people, by looking at highest qualifications (degrees), hourly earnings, and occupations (professional and working class), for those who grew up in the area, taking socio-economic background into account.

Areas with the most promising prospects include: London and the Home Counties. Other favourable areas include: Brighton and Hove, Cheshire East, Luton and Warwickshire.

The least and less favourable areas for promising prospects include – Barnsley, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly, Gateshead, Hull, North East Lincolnshire, North Lanarkshire, Northumberland, Rochdale, Sunderland, South Tyneside and Wakefield.

Conditions of Childhood

This index reports on the overall conditions of an area for children. It covers childhood poverty, parental education, and parental occupation (professional and working class) based on people’s current location. Areas with low relative childhood poverty, more highly educated parents, and more parents with professional occupations will score better in this index. 

The areas with the most favourable conditions of childhood are largely in the south: Brighton and Hove, Kingston upon Thames, Oxfordshire CC, Richmond upon Thames, Surrey CC, Wandsworth, Windsor and Maidenhead and Wokingham. But also include East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, and Trafford.

In contrast, areas with the least and less favourable conditions of childhood tend to be found in the north east and north west, in coastal cities, industrial and former mining areas, as well as some inner-city areas in London. These include Blackburn with Darwen, Hull, Leicester, Middlesbrough, North East Lincolnshire, Oldham, Sandwell, Stoke-on-Trent, Barnsley, Sunderland, Rochdale, and Tower Hamlets, Walsall among others.

Links to resources 

About the commission

The Social Mobility Commission is an advisory, non-departmental public body established under the Life Chances Act 2010 as modified by the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. It has a duty to assess progress in improving social mobility in the United Kingdom and to promote social mobility in England.

It comprises:

Commission Chair

Alun Francis, Principal and CEO of Blackpool & The Fylde College

Deputy Chairs 

Resham Kotecha, Head of Policy at the Open Data Institute. 

Rob Wilson, Chairman at WheelPower – British Wheelchair Sport. 

Commissioners 

Dr Raghib Ali, Senior Clinical Research Associate at the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge.

Ryan Henson, Chief Executive Officer at the Coalition for Global Prosperity.

Parminder Kohli, Chair Shell UK Ltd and Shell Group Executive Vice President Sustainability and Carbon.

Resham Kotecha, Head of Policy at the Open Data Institute.

The Rt Hon Baroness Tina Stowell of Beeston MBE.

Media Contacts