New research suggests that a growing number of young people in the UK think they will be worse-off than their parents. IF Senior Researcher, Conor Nakkan, takes a closer look at these findings.
UK Youth Poll
Earlier this month, the results from the UK Youth Poll 2026 were released. Conducted by the John Smith Centre at the University of Glasgow, the research surveyed thousands of young people aged 16 to 29 across the UK. It asked them about their priorities, needs, and perceptions of the world around them.
Topics ranged from the impact of AI on work and education, to whether social media should be banned for under-16s, to whether young people would be willing to take up arms and fight for Britain. But despite its breadth, one theme dominated the findings: the growing importance of economic insecurity in young people’s lives.
What are young people worried about?
In the poll, young people were presented with a list of issues and asked which they were most worried about personally. The top concern, by a considerable margin, was financial worries, cited by 45% of respondents. This was up from 37% in last year’s poll. The next two were job insecurity or unemployment at 33% and housing instability at 25%.
Young people gave similar answers when asked about the most important issues facing the UK more broadly. The top answer was inflation and the cost of living at 39%, followed by housing affordability (33%), healthcare (33%), immigration (28%), and job security (27%).
These findings suggest that young people are primarily concerned about what are sometimes called the bread-and-butter issues: housing, jobs, and the cost of living. Put differently, they are worried that the basic building blocks of a good life, such as securing a decent job or buying a home of their own, are being pushed further out of reach.
The decline in intergenerational optimism
Perhaps as a reflection of these material concerns, this year’s poll also revealed a collapse in young people’s confidence that they will be better off than their parents. In last year’s poll, 63% of young people thought they would eventually be better off than their parents. In this year’s poll, that figure fell to just 36%. At the same time, the share who thought they would be worse off rose from 14% to 37%.
As we have argued elsewhere, these findings increasingly reflect the lived reality for millions of young people across the UK. High housing costs, weak wage growth, and growing insecurity at work mean that many feel they are working harder for less security than the generation before them.
More young people are now living at home for longer, taking on larger student debts, struggling to find secure work, and taking longer to reach important life milestones such as homeownership and starting a family. Given all this, it is hardly surprising that so many now fear they will be worse off than their parents.
Perceptions of intergenerational unfairness
Another striking finding was the growing sense among young people that they are being treated unfairly compared with older generations. Last year, around 43% of respondents agreed that young people were treated fairly compared with older generations. This year, that figure fell to just 25%.
That suggests young people are not simply anxious about their own circumstances in isolation. Rather, they feel that the pressures they are facing are part of a broader pattern of intergenerational unfairness. And, as our previous research has demonstrated, such perceptions are not unreasonable given the increasingly unequal distribution of benefits and burdens between generations in the UK
The stories behind the numbers
Alongside the survey data, the researchers also conducted hundreds of interviews and several focus groups to better understand why young people were worried about their prospects.
One 27-year-old woman said that being young in Britain today can feel like “being robbed of the life we were meant to have.” She contrasted her own experience with that of her parents, who were able to come to the UK in the late 1990s and build a good life for themselves. For her generation, she said, things feel very different.
That sense of decline came through strongly in the way many participants compared their own prospects with those of their parents. One 29-year-old woman said that although she and her father earned similar amounts, he had still been able to buy a house, whereas for her “it is a far-off reality.”
Others spoke not just about financial pressure, but about the way it narrows life itself. As one 29-year-old man put it, he expected things to get harder and life more expensive, with hobbies, relationships and travel gradually being crowded out by “the grind.”
The mood in the focus groups was captured by one 23-year-old woman, who said: “I question every purchase, even something as simple as a bus ticket. I worry about how I am going to make ends meet.” She went on to describe the anger and unfairness she felt at having been told to go to university and get a good education, only to end up with large debts and little job security in return.
What do young people want?
The UK Youth Poll also asked young people what, if anything, would make them happier or more satisfied with their own lives. Given the discussion above, the answers were not particularly surprising: four of the top five responses related directly to financial or housing security. The top response was higher wages or financial stability at 40%, followed by affordable housing (33%), better career opportunities (21%), better mental health support (21%), and improved job security (19%).
The government would do well to listen. Of course, there is no single lever it can pull to fix these issues overnight. But there are practical steps it can take. For one thing, it should not be making it harder or more expensive for businesses to employ younger workers. It should reduce pressures created by the student finance system. And it should continue with reforms that increase housing supply, while also doing more to encourage downsizing and make better use of the homes we already have.
So long as the government continue to prioritise the interests of older voters while overlooking those of younger adults, they should not be surprised if younger voters increasingly start looking elsewhere. Perhaps the results of the upcoming local elections will remind the government that ignoring the interests of a large section of the electorate does not make for not a winning strategy.
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Photo by Ross Sneddon on Unsplash.