Breaking the cycle for young people
Building the essential digital skills needed to access opportunity
oo many young people are leaving education and joining the labour force without the essential digital skills that employers now assume as a baseline. As technology and AI reshape entry‑level roles, this risk is growing, particularly for young people already facing barriers to opportunity.
Breaking the Cycle for Young People is a FutureDotNow workstream focused on influencing key stakeholders to tackle this challenge early, and support young people to build the digital confidence, capability and motivation they need to participate in the modern workforce.
Essential digital and AI upskilling
Less than half of 18-24 year olds can complete the 20 digital tasks that are essential for work.
Why this work matters
Essential digital skills are gateway skills. Without them, young people are more likely to struggle at as they transition from education into work, from training into sustained employment, and from low‑paid roles into progression.
A significant proportion of young people lack the digital basics required for work, contributing to persistent cycles of exclusion, low confidence and missed opportunity. Addressing this early is critical to improving employability, productivity and long‑term outcomes.
Our focus
FutureDotNow is focused on the needs of the working age population, however, unless we break the cycle of young people joining the workforce with the basics, we will never realise a digitally capable, future-fit workforce.
Led by BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT and skills platform iDEA, this workstream seeks to influence key stakeholders in supporting young people as they progress to working life, including educators policy makers. We want to:
Make essential digital and AI skills a core part of support for young people
Create clearer pathways to digital capability (e.g. incorporate essential digital skills into all apprenticeships)
Ensure young people build not just technical skills, but confidence and readiness for a changing workplace
