Recent headlines, about job opportunities for young people shrinking, are hard to ignore. A major review by UK government, published at the end of May, highlighted that nearly one million people aged 16 to 24 - that’s one-in-eight young people - are not in education, employment or training (NEET).
The review suggests we are at risk of a “lost generation”, and highlights that, “the deeper problem is youth detachment from the labour market.” - but this doesn’t feel quite right to me.
While there may be a “perfect storm” of challenges, as the report suggests, the young people we meet when recruiting aren’t lost. They’re actively looking for opportunities - it’s just harder than ever for them to get a foot in the door.
This is not about a lack of talent or ambition. Instead, it reflects a lack of opportunity, and a clear gap in the support needed to take that first step. And in tech, that first step matters.
A growing sector, with a narrowing way in
Technology remains one of the fastest growing sectors, with continued demand for digital, data and AI skills. Yet that demand is not translating into accessible early career pathways, raising an increasingly important question: where is the future tech workforce coming from?
What is changing is not the need for talent, but how people get started. Entry-level routes feel harder to access, with hiring continuing to lean towards experience, while some junior responsibilities are being reshaped by AI and automation .
The sector itself is not slowing, but the route in, is becoming less visible and more difficult to navigate.
What employers are telling us
Drawing on a recent LinkedIn poll with 50 CTOs and senior leaders across the public and private sectors, spanning organisations of different sizes, the barriers to bringing in early talent are clear and consistent:
Budget constraints (40%)
Lack of capacity to support (30%)
Preference for experience (20%)
Remote and hybrid challenges (10%)
There was no lack of intent behind these responses. But, they do reflect the practical realities organisations are working with. Teams need people who can contribute quickly, while capacity to support and develop those at the beginning of their careers is often limited.
Cost pressures are also becoming harder to ignore. The total cost of employing someone on national living wage, for a 37.5-hour week, has risen significantly in recent years. This is before even factoring in recruitment, onboarding, and the time investment required to support early talent.
In the context of wider economic pressure, it is easy to see how hiring decisions are currently being shaped.
What’s happening behind the scenes
Alongside these immediate pressures, a number of broader structural factors are influencing how organisations approach hiring. Cost considerations are increasingly pulling decisions towards immediate impact, often favouring experienced hires or consultants.
Hybrid working adds another layer. While it works well for experienced professionals, early careers have traditionally relied on proximity, learning through observation, informal support, and day-to-day interaction.
None of these factors is new on its own, but together they are making the route into tech less visible and harder to navigate than it once was. This points less to a lack of demand, and more to how entry pathways are structured.
Where friction is felt
Many tech environments are built around immediate productivity, with roles designed around experience and knowledge concentrated within smaller groups. In practice, this often leaves limited room for development, even where there is intent to support early talent.
As a result, bringing in people at the start of their careers can feel difficult to make work, not because organisations do not see the value, but because the structure around those roles does not always enable it.
AI and the changing shape of entry roles
AI is already influencing roles and expectations. It does not remove the need for early talent, but it does change what is valued at the point of entry.
Skills such as judgement, problem solving, and the ability to work effectively alongside AI are becoming increasingly important. These are not capabilities that can be hired fully formed; they develop over time through experience.
This reinforces the importance of building and maintaining a strong pipeline, even as the nature of entry-level roles continues to evolve.
Looking ahead
The impact of these shifts is not immediate, but it becomes visible over time as fewer people have the opportunity to build experience. Early talent becomes experienced hires, but that progression depends on there being a clear and accessible starting point.
When that starting point narrows, the effects are felt further down the line.
Rethinking how it works
If capacity and risk are the sticking points, then the model itself needs to adapt. The challenge is not simply whether to invest in early talent, but how to do so in a way that works within current constraints.
Approaches such as flexi-job apprenticeships offer a practical way forward. As a Department for Education-approved model, it allows organisations to bring in early technology talent without taking on the full employment risk and cost, while still providing structured development alongside delivery.
It is a way of creating accessible entry points without adding pressure to already stretched teams.
A call to employers
For organisations building digital, data and AI capability, the question is no longer whether early talent matters, but how it can be made to work in today’s environment. There is an opportunity to rethink where early talent can add value, even if that looks different to before.
This may mean adapting roles, rethinking support structures, or exploring alternative models that reduce risk while maintaining development pathways.
Because your talent pipeline will not build, or maintain, itself.
The people trying to get into tech today are the ones who will build experience over the coming years. That progression only happens when there is a starting point.
Right now, that first step is harder to access than it should be, and over time, that feeds directly into the availability of experienced talent. They are two ends of the same pipeline, seen at different stages.
Ready to take the next step?
If you are rethinking how early talent fits into your organisation, now is the time to explore what is possible.
