OUR NEW PRIME MINISTER HAS THE CHANCE TO CREATE A NEW CONTRACT WITH BRITAIN’S YOUNG PEOPLE
John Smith Centre August 4, 2026
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2025
Don’t believe all the doom and gloom about young people in the UK today. Most say they are still optimistic and that their lives will be better than their parents’.
However, young people think UK democracy is in trouble and their optimism is tempered by financial anxiety.
The poll reveals that young peoples’ attitudes, their sense of agency and their willingness to contribute to society diverge significantly due to their life circumstances, by where they live, and by who they are.
On some issues and questions, men and women differ in their answers, sometimes considerably. Equally, we have also seen that for many questions the majority of respondents answer similarly. Nuance is needed when interpreting the data.
For example, whenplacing themselves on the political spectrum, women chose ‘Left’ 20% of the time compared to men’s 13%. In contrast, men chose ‘Right’ 26% of the time, compared to women’s 15%. However, the majority of both genders put themselves in the centre: 51% of men and 43% of women.
We are seeing a generation that has a positive outlook for their future and thinks they will be better off than their parents. They are politically engaged and interested, thinking their votes make a difference and supporting democracy.
Equally, young people identify many issues with the current state of affairs, not least worries about the health of democracy and the systems we operate in themselves. As much as the general population, they are affected by concerns about their basic everyday needs, such as housing, affordability of basic necessities and healthcare.
Our poll confirms that the level of income that young people earn, their work status, the education they receive and even where in the country they live plays a major factor in the way in which they experience the world and take part in it.
Such differences are, perhaps, not surprising, but our poll clearly demonstrates the extent to which life chances and job prospects influence the views of young people on politics, on their own future, and in their belief that they can meaningfully change either.
Our survey asked young people to put themselves on a left-right scale of 1 to 10. The figures show that 17% leaned left (1–3), 20% leaned right (8–10), and 47% put themselves in the middle (4–7). A further 16% said they didn’t know. While political polarisation may be an issue that dominates our national conversation, the largest cohort of young people in the UK still place themselves in the centre-ground.
Political populism, financial insecurity, and the power of the algorithm are not yet pushing most young people in the UK to the extremes. According to the poll, young people on the left and right are far more active and intensely involved in politics than those quieter, less engaged young people in the middle.
Despite fierce headwinds, young people have used our poll to tell us they are still positive and willing to get engaged in the UK’s future. We need a society that feeds their optimism with opportunities to do so.
Young people have told us in this poll that they want a more honest and constructive politics that focuses relentlessly on the delivery of the basics: job security, decent housing and a functioning NHS.
They want politicians to be open and honest about the challenges they face. Government and opposition should respond to this challenge by doing politics better.
We believe the poll shows the need to reach out much more to those young people who feel they don’t have a voice in the UK.
A failure to do so will only create a new generation of left-behinds who end up feeling cut off from society, and thereby vulnerable to extremes.
