Promising prospects

Published: 12 September 2023
see all updates

There is a new version of this page. View the latest version.

Data on the UK regions with the most 'promising prospects' for 25 to 29 year olds – measured by levels of university education, professional work, and earnings.

Visualisation

Index of 'promising prospects', by region (UK, 2018 to 2021 combined)

41 regions in the UK are ranked from the lowest to highest composite scores. They are then divided into 5 equally-sized groups (‘quintiles’), from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). Areas with the highest scores have the most promising prospects for young people.

Q1 - Lowest 20%
Q5 - Highest 20%

Data

Index of 'promising prospects', by region (UK, 2018 to 2021 combined)
Region Index of 'promising prospects' Quintile
Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire 0.64 5
Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire 0.42 4
Cheshire 0.16 2
Cornwall and Isles of Scilly 0.23 2
Cumbria 0.36 3
Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire 0.25 2
Devon 0.43 4
Dorset and Somerset 0.45 4
East Anglia 0.00 1
East Wales 0.34 3
East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire 0.32 3
Eastern Scotland 0.00 1
Essex 0.42 4
Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bath/Bristol area 0.21 2
Greater Manchester 0.26 2
Hampshire and Isle of Wight 0.28 3
Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire 0.42 4
Highlands and Islands 0.29 3
Inner London - East 0.64 5
Inner London - West 0.51 5
Kent 0.29 3
Lancashire 0.00 1
Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire 0.47 5
Lincolnshire 0.12 1
Merseyside 0.28 3
North Eastern Scotland 0.37 4
North Yorkshire 0.59 5
Northern Ireland 0.25 2
Northumberland, and Tyne and Wear 0.18 2
Outer London - East and North East 0.71 5
Outer London - South 0.50 5
Outer London - West and North West 0.60 5
Shropshire and Staffordshire 0.27 2
South Yorkshire 0.08 1
Southern Scotland 0.13 1
Surrey, East and West Sussex 0.87 5
Tees Valley and Durham 0.04 1
West Central Scotland 0.30 3
West Midlands 0.39 4
West Wales and The Valleys 0.30 3
West Yorkshire 0.10 1
  • Download the data (CSV, 1KB)
  • Download

    For the full download file, see Download the data.


    Summary main findings

    Young people brought up in London, Surrey and Sussex, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, and North Yorkshire tend to have the best prospects in terms of attaining higher qualifications, higher earnings and a professional job.

    Young people brought up in more rural or remote areas, and in some former industrial areas, tend to have worse prospects.

    Prospects for young people may be different within these broad areas – particularly in regions like North Yorkshire, which contains both remote rural and urban areas.

    About the data

    This page combines data from the following 3 indicators into a single 'composite' score to give a more reliable picture of geographical mobility patterns:

    The data is adjusted for socio-economic background, so it measures how promising the prospects are of young people from similar social backgrounds.

    Indicators are rescaled to make sure they use a common metric. The best-performing area’s score is set to 1, and the least well-performing area’s score is set to 0.

    See the technical annex (opens in a new tab) for more information on how each area was scored.

    Data source

    Labour Force Survey pooled, from 2018 to 2021.

    Areas are those where respondents lived when they were 14 years old.


    Download the data

    Download full dataset (CSV, 5KB)

    This file contains the following variables:

    • Indicator code
    • Indicator name
    • Area code
    • Area name
    • Area type
    • Value
    • Sex
    • Quintile

    Page history

    Publication release date:

    12 September 2023

    Editions of this page:

    This page replaces: