A Million Young People and a Shortage of Sparks: Why the answer sits with our smallest organisations
Callum Biscoe, Founder & Commercial Director C&B Electrical Contractor Ltd
Britain has close to a million young people doing nothing at all, and an electrical industry that cannot find enough people to train. Those two facts should never sit side by side. They do because our education system steers young people badly, and because the small firms best placed to train them have been left without the tools to do it.
As electrical contractors, we see both sides of this every week. We feel the pressure of a shrinking pool of qualified hands, as experienced electricians retire faster than new ones come through. We also meet capable school leavers who have drifted for a year or two because nobody showed them a route into a trade. Fixing that is not a favour to industry. It is one of the most practical things this country could do, for its young people, for its ageing infrastructure and for an economy that needs skilled workers to grow.
The numbers aren’t pretty
The latest ONS figures put 981,000 young people aged 16 to 24 outside education, employment or training in April to June 2026. That is 13% of the age group, and it follows a quarter in which the total passed one million for the first time since 2013. Around 588,000 of them are economically inactive, meaning they are not even looking for work.
Meanwhile, demand for electricians keeps climbing. Our trade powers the move to net zero, from EV charging to solar and heat pumps. It also keeps the country’s essential infrastructure running, from the homes people live in to the hospitals, schools and public buildings that serve them. Much of that infrastructure is ageing and needs rewiring,upgrading and maintaining, and none of it can happen without skilled, competent tradespeople. Skills England, the government’s skills body for England, estimates the UK will need an extra 12,000 electricians by 2030. Yet the ECA’s 2026 Electrical Skills Index found that, in England, electrical apprenticeships starts fell by 5.5% last year, while apprenticeship starts overall rose by 4.1%. More than 26,000 people in England enrolled on government-funded classroom electrical courses in 2024/25. Fewer than one in five went on to an electrical apprenticeship or skilled job within a year. The interest is there. The young people are there. The work is there. What is missing is the bridge between them.
An education system that points the wrong way
For a generation, schools have been measured on academic results and university progression. Careers guidance has been squeezed into a handful of sessions, often delivered by people who have never worked in a trade. The message many teenagers hear,spoken or not, is that an apprenticeship is the fallback for those who could not manage something better.
That message is wrong, and it is costly. A qualified electrician can earn well, run their own business and never carry a student loan. But a 15-year-old will only choose that path if someone shows it to them early and shows them everything the role involves.
The classroom-course figures make the point. Thousands of young people sign up to learn the trade, then find there is no placement at the end, because the local market is saturated or the demand is somewhere else. We are putting them on a conveyor belt of disappointment. Education should be organised around where a learner can actually get to, not around what a college needs to fill for its own bottom line. We need a tailored route to qualification that steers each person towards real opportunity.
Better guidance means three things
1. Real employers in Schools and being present, not just a careers day in Year 11.
2. Equal standing for technical and academic routes in how schools are judged.
3. Colleges funded for the apprenticeships and jobs their learners reach, not only for enrolments.
Small Businesses are where apprentices are made
The electrical trade is built on small firms. A large share of contractors are micro-entities:a qualified electrician and perhaps one to four others. These are the businesses that,historically, took on a school leaver and turned them into a tradesperson over four years.
They are also the businesses finding it hardest to do so now. The ECA’s own analysis says SMEs train most new entrants but are struggling to take on apprentices because of rising costs and risk.
For a micro-firm, an apprentice is a serious commitment
Supervision time. Every hour spent mentoring is an hour not billed, and in a three-person firm that is a big slice of capacity.
Cash flow. Wages run every week, while payment from main contractors can take months.
Risk. If the apprentice leaves after a year, the firm has carried the cost and gets nothing back.
Paperwork. Navigating training providers, funding rules and end-point assessment is a job in itself, with no HR department to do it.
When the decision is that finely balanced, many owners simply say no. Multiply that across thousands of small firms and you have a pipeline that has quietly shut.
2026 brought welcome help, but money alone will not fix it
Credit where it is due. In England, since August 2026, apprenticeship training for under-25s has been fully funded for non-levy employers, which covers almost every small contractor. From October, a £2,000 hiring grant is available to non-levy employers who take on a new 16 to 24-year-old. A separate £3,000 Youth Jobs Grant applies to eligible 18 to 24-year-olds who have claimed Universal Credit for six months or more.
These are real steps, and every small contractor should know about them. But training fees were never the whole problem. The CIPD has pointed out that cost is rarely the main barrier for small employers. The bigger obstacles are time, capacity, risk and complexity,and a one-off grant does not touch most of those.
A micro-firm owner needs to know that taking on an apprentice will not sink the business in a bad quarter. That takes more than a cheque. It also takes know how. Better financial literacy for small business owners, from cash-flow planning to pricing and forecasting,would build the capacity they need to take on apprentices and grow organically.
What needs to happen
If we want small firms to grow organically, and grow the workforce with them, they needtools that match how they actually work.
1. An admin-free framework for small businesses.
A simple, ready-made frameworkthat takes the paperwork off small firms. One local point of contact handles providermatching, funding claims, compliance and assessment, so owners can focus ontraining apprentices and running their business, not filling in forms.
2. A government-backed scheme to regulate how money flows through the industry.
Enforced payment terms, protection for retention money and secure paymentarrangements on public projects. When small firms are paid fairly and on time, theycan plan ahead, invest and hire.
3. Placements guaranteed for classroom learners.
Colleges and regional skills bodies working with local contractors so that a course leads to a real workplace, not a deadend.
4. A talent pipeline from college to employer.
A recognised assessment that identifies the most promising learners on attitude, reliability and practical ability, not just exam results, and matches them with local contractors ready to hire. Employers get a trusted shortlist, and learners get a clear goal to work towards.
5. Earlier, honest guidance in schools.
Tradespeople in classrooms, work tasters at 14, and apprenticeships presented as a first choice rather than a second one.
None of these are radical.
The ECA’s regional Electrotechnical Training and Careers Alliances are already bringing contractors, providers and local bodies together. What they need now is government backing and scale.
A million reasons to act
Every young person sitting at home is a career that has not started. Every small contractor that cannot find skilled people is a business that cannot grow. The two problems share one solution: a skills system that guides young people towards real opportunities, and gives the smallest employers the confidence to offer them.
To fellow contractors: look at the 2026 funding, and talk to your local training provider or alliance about taking someone on.
To policymakers and educators: build the system around the firms that actually do the training. Get that right, and the micro-businesses of today become the training grounds, and the employers, of tomorrow. Who knows, one of them might be the next big name in our industry. Every large contractor started small, and the support that helped them grow should be there for the next generation too.
Sources
ONS: Young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), UK: August 2026
Youth Futures Foundation: NEETs pass one million (May 2026)
Electrical Times: ECA 2026 Electrical Skills Index
Sheffield College: Growth and Skills Levy reforms for SMEs
CIPD: Apprenticeships and the Growth and Skills Levy
