Hundreds of job applications. One interview every six months. A roof that keeps slipping away. For a growing number of young people across Britain, this is not an exception but a routine.
New warnings from youth homelessness charities say the surge in young people out of work and education is pushing more into unstable housing and onto the streets. A government-commissioned review, led by Alan Milburn, found that the number of young people classified as not in education, employment or training (Neet) could climb 25 per cent to 1.25 million by the early 2030s without serious intervention.
Milburn said the "instability of worklessness" was increasing the risk of young people ending up homeless and was worsening outcomes for those already in difficult circumstances.
According to figures cited by The Guardian, nearly 124,000 young people in the UK were either homeless or at risk of losing their home in 2024-25. That is a 6 per cent rise on the year before and the third straight year the number has gone up. In the north-west of England, which has the highest youth homelessness rate in the country, numbers rose by more than a third.
The Big Issue reported a 60 per cent rise in vendors aged 18 to 24 since 2022, with numbers climbing from 449 to 720. Youth unemployment across the UK now sits at 14.7 per cent, the highest level in over a decade. Britain has the third-highest rate among wealthy European nations of 16 to 24-year-olds who are neither earning nor learning.
Josh, 23, who lives in supported housing run by Centrepoint, told The Guardian he may have sent out more than a thousand job applications over the past two years while struggling to keep a roof over his head. "I'd be applying for jobs for six hours straight in one night," he said. "Then getting maybe one reply and one interview every six months, just to get rejected at the last step."
He lost his bar job, faced a family breakdown with nowhere to go and found that as the work dried up, affordable housing became harder to find and his mental health deteriorated.
Faye, 22, who grew up in the care system and is also living in Centrepoint accommodation, said the pressure of chasing work in a jobs shortage while trying to secure housing in a crisis felt impossible to manage together. She worked at a sweet shop, Costa Coffee and a paid placement at Pret, but the short-term and unstable nature of those roles led her to fall behind on rent.
"It's the actual stress and struggle of trying to apply for a job and not getting it, or there just not being enough of them, or you don't have the experience," she said. "But where do you get that experience unless you start working from the age of 10?"
Despite being listed as high priority for social housing as a care leaver, Faye has spent more than a year on the waiting list with no offer yet.
Lisa Doyle, head of policy and public affairs at Centrepoint, said employers are receiving hundreds of applications for entry-level roles with only one position available. "Young people can't create jobs," she said. "Lots of the public discussion often seems to lay the blame at the feet of young people and that must be really frustrating."
John Bird, founder of the Big Issue and a crossbench peer, said young people were dealing with rising cost-of-living pressures against a backdrop of shrinking job opportunities and called for solutions that address the role of growing poverty in the crisis.
Manchester cafe owner alleges UK police offered incentives to spy on Palestine Action supporters
A Manchester cafe owner says two police officers tried to recruit him as an informant against Palestine Action by offering him financial help and a promise to overlook minor offences. The account raises serious questions about the methods being used by British police in their response to the banned direct action group.
Shams Sadiq, 51, who owns two cafes in Manchester, told The Guardian that officers made the approach when he visited Ashton-under-Lyne police station on May 15 to collect electronic devices seized during his arrest the previous year. The arrest was connected to alleged offences linked to Palestine Action.
Sadiq said the two officers, who he believes were part of Operation Wildflower (a Greater Manchester Police response to the war on Gaza), asked to speak with him privately. They told him they knew from his devices that he was "fully involved" with Palestine Action but would not be charging him for his earlier arrest.
"They said to me: 'We need your help. Look, there's benefits in helping us,'" Sadiq told The Guardian. When he asked whether that meant financial benefits, one officer said they could "help with things like that." The second officer added that they could "turn a blind eye to certain things" as long as no serious crime was involved. When Sadiq asked about speeding tickets, the officers said: "We don't care about speeding."
Sadiq said he understood the request to mean he should inform on Palestine Action and possibly identify individuals with extreme views at his local mosque. He added that the officers described him as well-respected in his community.
Four days before the station visit, Sadiq said he was stopped at Manchester airport under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act after returning from a holiday in Morocco. Officers questioned him for more than three hours about Palestine Action, Iran and his personal finances including his mortgage. His electronic devices were taken again.
He said the same officers then asked him to meet them at a Starbucks in the airport terminal three days later where they returned his devices and were "really nice, apologetic."
Sadiq said he decided to go public specifically because he was not taking up the offer and wanted to protect himself. "I feel like I need protection from the police rather than anything else," he said.
