Key facts
- The Milburn review will recommend flexi-jobs, employment subsidies and intensive skills support for disabled 16- to 24-year-olds.
- About a million young people are classified as Neet, and 45% of them are disabled or in ill health, the review says.
- Disabled young people are three times as likely to be Neet as their non-disabled peers, according to the review.
- The review proposes a Danish-style flexi-job scheme guaranteeing employment with hours set to individual capacity and wages topped up by government.
- Milburn suggested switching some of the £4bn a year spent on disability benefits for young people into employment and training support.
- The review will urge large employers to voluntarily adopt employment targets for disabled 16- to 24-year-olds, stopping short of statutory quotas.
The Milburn review of youth employment will recommend that the British state create and subsidise paid jobs for thousands of disabled young people, according to a report published on November 5, 2026. The review, due to report in November 2026, will propose Danish-style flexi-jobs, employment subsidies and intensive skills support for disabled and chronically ill 16- to 24-year-olds.
The review says about a million young people are classified as Neet, meaning not in education, employment or training, and that 45% of them are disabled or in ill health. Disabled young people are three times as likely to be Neet as their non-disabled peers, it says. Nearly half of 24-year-old Neets have never worked.
The review's author, former Labour cabinet minister Alan Milburn, has described rising numbers of Neets as a moral and economic crisis and warned of a lost generation. He has rejected what he called myths about young people being snowflakes and said most want to work.
The review will propose a Danish-style flexi-job scheme that guarantees disabled participants employment while allowing them to set working hours, in some cases starting at four hours a week, with wages topped up by the government. It will also call for job carving, splitting an entry-level role into separate tasks to match young people to each part.
Milburn has suggested the state should switch some of the £4bn a year it spends on disability benefits for young people into employment and training support. The review will urge large employers to voluntarily adopt employment targets for disabled 16- to 24-year-olds, stopping short of statutory quotas. The proposals echo the postwar Remploy scheme, which created state-funded sheltered employment for disabled ex-service personnel and had 90 factories at its height, with the last closing in 2013.