Hidden Entrepreneurs

Unlocking the entrepreneurial talent of young people not in education, employment or training.

Close to a million young people in the UK are out of work and education. More of them could build real businesses than the country expects, if they are found and backed in the places where they live.

Read the paper

The talent is there.
Let’s bring it into the light.

The opportunity

The ambition is
already there.

1in5

unemployed young people
plan to start a business.

Close to one in five unemployed young people plan to start a business. That is the same share as those in work.

Yet starting a business is still seen as a marginal route for young people out of work. We think that reflects a poverty of ambition, and it is ours, not theirs.

The talent is there.
What’s missing is the backing.

Source: University of Westminster and Aston University for the Youth Futures Foundation. Plans to start a business within three years.

The foundation

Financial security
is the start.

Young people need money to live on while they start, and the government has recognised that. The Autumn Budget announced a Young Entrepreneurs Allowance: a pilot that will support young people with their living costs during their first year building a business.

The design of the pilot is still open. This paper sets out how to make it work for young people not in education, employment or training.

But income alone
will not unlock
hidden talent.

The allowance gives a young person time. To build a business they also need advice, introductions and a first customer willing to take a chance. Which of them get that help depends on their family and where they grow up.

Only 18% of UK start-up founders come from working-class or low-income households, against 45% of the population.

These connections are a form of infrastructure. Where they are missing, they have to be built.

Source: Startup Coalition, A Missed Opportunity.

The proposal

A new
place-led model.

A place can build that backing deliberately. Drawing on our experience of finding and backing hidden and unexpected entrepreneurs, we propose that mayoral strategic authorities commission approved providers to do three things.

Find.

Go out and find young people with drive and something to build on: a skill, an idea, or first-hand experience of a problem worth solving. Reach those who would never see an advert, and don’t ask for a CV or a business plan.

Back.

Give each young person a cohort to build alongside, a coach who has built a business and fights for them, and a commercial curriculum centred on selling to real customers.

Mobilise.

Organise the area’s businesses and institutions behind them. Not all can create jobs, but almost all can offer advice, open a door, test a product or become a first customer.

Young people would come in through one of two routes, both using money government has already committed: the Young Entrepreneurs Allowance, or a six-month placement under the Jobs Guarantee.

The ask

We are asking
government to
do three things.

Design the Young Entrepreneurs Allowance pilot around places.
Run it with two or three mayoral strategic authorities, with places deciding who is backed, within national standards.
Create an entrepreneurship route within the Jobs Guarantee.
It offers a funded six-month job to 18 to 24 year olds who have been looking for work for 18 months. Let them spend it building a business, employed by an approved programme.
Aim high and evaluate independently.
Set ambitious targets, measure against a matched comparison group, and use the results to decide on national rollout from 2028.

The full paper