Official Statistics

Youth Participation Pilot Survey: Executive summary

Published 7 November 2024

Applies to England

1.1 Introduction

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) helps to drive growth, enrich lives and promote Britain abroad. It supports culture, arts, media, sport, tourism and civil society across every part of England — recognising the UK’s world-leading position in these areas.

DCMS commissioned Verian (formerly Kantar Public) to conduct a development study to design a new Youth Survey. This survey is intended to provide insights into the level of access to out-of-school activities, it will provide new evidence in this area and help understanding of what further programs could be needed in the youth sector.

The survey focused primarily on young people’s engagement with five key activities:

• Sports clubs or fitness classes like football, netball, running club, dance, or swimming.

• Art or music groups, courses or clubs such as a painting class, crafts club, drama club, choir or music lessons.

• Youth clubs or centres.

• Uniformed groups. ^{[footnote 1]}

• Any other group or club, such as cooking club, science club or IT club.

This report presents the findings from the pilot survey. There is a separate technical report for the pilot survey. Tabulations of data from the pilot survey are published alongside this report. The statistics in this report are labelled as official statistics in development

All differences commented on in this report are statistically significant at the 95 per-cent level of confidence.

1.2 Participation in clubs and activities

Two thirds of young people (66%) had participated in any of the five activities of interest over the past year and a third (33%) had not. Participation rates were lower  for many groups), including those aged 16-19 ages (44%, compared with 84% of those aged 10-12 and 75% of those aged 13-15%), those with long-term limiting illnesses or disabilities (56%) compared to those with no long-term illnesses or disabilities (67%), in the most deprived IDACI (Index Deprivation Affecting Children Index) quintile (56%) compared to those in the highest IDACI quintile (76%) and those who describe themselves as females ^{[footnote 2]} (62%) compared to those who describe themselves as males (69%). 

Sports clubs or fitness classes were the most widespread activity, with around half (52%) of all young people having participated in these in the past 12 months.

A fifth of young people (19%) had taken part in art or music-related activities over the past year. Around one in ten (11%) had participated in a uniformed group in the past 12 months and a similar proportion (8%) had been to a youth club or centre. One in ten (10%) had participated in any other group or club (such as cooking clubs, science clubs and IT clubs).

Among those who had participated in the past year, participation was typically on at least a weekly basis. Focusing on the most frequently attended activity for each young person, 45% participated once a week and 45% participated more than once a week.

A quarter (24%) of non-participants did not know of anywhere in their local area where they could go to take part in any of the five activities. A lack of awareness about somewhere to go for each individual activity was higher among non-participants in art and music-related activities (46%) and youth clubs and centres (44%).

Fewer than half of all respondents (45%) actively agreed that there were enough clubs and activities in their area (14% agreed strongly and 31% tended to agree).

Certain groups were more likely to actively feel that there were not enough clubs and activities for young people in their local area. These included those with a long-term limiting illness or disability (40%, compared with 24% of those without such an illness or disability), those in the most deprived IDACI quintile (34%, compared with 22% in the two least deprived quintiles) and those aged 16-19 (33%, compared with 23% of those aged 10-12 and 20% of those aged 13-15). There were no reported differences by regions.

When identifying barriers to participation, the most common response was a lack of interest. Overall, four in ten young people (39%) reported that ‘I’m not interested in going’.

1.3 Participation in activities involving overnight stays away from home

Four-in-ten (40%) of those attending a school or college in the past year had taken part in an activity involving an overnight stay in the last 12 months. Three-in-ten (30%) had been on an overnight stay organised by their school or college and one in ten (10%) had an overnight stay that had not been organised by their school or college ^{[footnote 3]}.

The groups who were more likely to have gone on an overnight stay include those who describe themselves as male (43%, compared with 38% of those who describe themselves as female), those aged 10-12 (54%, compared with 38% of 13-15s and 27% of those aged 16-19) and those who did not receive FSM (43%, compared with 36% of those who receive FSM).

The most common reasons for not going on an overnight stay include their school or college not offering overnight stays (45%), a lack of interest on the part of the young person (32%) and cost (21%). The barriers experienced by young people differed according to gender, age, region, long-term limiting illness or disability, ethnicity and eligibility for FSM.

1.4 Volunteering

Overall, slightly more than two in five young people (44%) had done some kind of volunteering activity in the past 12 months. Some groups of young people were more likely to have volunteered than others. These include those who describe themselves as female (48%, compared with 39% of those who describe themselves as male), those aged 13-15 (48%, compared with 40% of those aged 10-12), those who did not receive FSM (47%, compared with 39% of those who received FSM), those from the North East and London (51% and 48% respectively, compared with 38% of those from the East of England), and those from less deprived areas (50% for the least deprived IDACI quintile, compared with 38% for the most deprived quintile).

The most common forms of volunteering were raising money for charity, for example through a sponsored event (20%), helping a non-family member (15%) and volunteering through the Scouts, Girl Guides, Cadets or other similar groups (8%).

More than half (54%) of those who had not volunteered in the past year said that they were not aware of any opportunities to volunteer or help people in their local area and a further 17% indicated that they weren’t sure.  When non-volunteers were asked about the barriers to volunteering, the most common reasons were being too busy with other commitments (30%), not knowing what is available or how to get involved (26%) and not being interested in volunteering (20%).

1.5 Participation in social action

Nearly half (47%) of young people had taken some kind of social action in the last 12 months. The most popular social action was helping to improve the local area (24%), followed by organising or signing petitions (22%) and campaigning or raising awareness (9%).

Those who describe themselves as female were more likely to have taken part in any social action (52%, compared with 41% of those who describe themselves as male). Young people from Asian/Asian British backgrounds (52%) were more likely than those from White backgrounds (46%) to have taken part in any social actions.

The biggest barrier to taking part in social actions was a lack of interest (40%), followed by being too busy with other commitments (22%) and not knowing what was available in their local area (21%).

1.6 Involvement in DCMS sector activities

From a prompted list of ten activities, the most commonly done were playing video games (88%), going to the cinema (87%) and visiting historic places (70%). The least widespread activities were watching live dance events (24%), live music events (41%) and going to a library (43%).

Participation in most activities was lower for those from the most deprived IDACI quintiles. Video gaming was the only activity that was more frequent among young people from the more deprived IDACI quintiles (62% of those in the most deprived IDACI quintile played video games at least once a week, compared with 54% of those in the least deprived IDACI quintile).

1.7 Wellbeing

The mean overall life satisfaction score was 7.33 out of 10. This is lower than Children’s Society’s findings from their Good Childhood report with the mean score being 7.6 out of 10. Life satisfaction scores were lower for young people with a long-term limiting illness or disability (6.55), those aged 16-19 (6.60) and those who describe themselves as female (7.15). Nearly one in ten young people (8%) had a low life satisfaction score of 0-4.

Life satisfaction decreased with age. The mean satisfaction score for those aged 10-12 was 8.24, falling to 7.39 for those aged 13-15 and 6.60 for those aged 16-19.

One in seven young people often felt that they have no one to talk to (15% rising to 28% for those with a long-term limiting illness or disability).

The same overall proportion reported that they often felt left out (15% rising to 32% for those with a long-term limiting illness or disability).

Overall, 16% of young people said that they often felt alone and 15% said that they often felt lonely. Those who received FSM were more likely to say that they often felt alone (21%, compared with 14% of those who did not receive FSM) and were also more likely to say that they often felt lonely (20%, compared with 12% of those who did not receive FSM).

Young people from Black/Black British backgrounds (13%) and Asian/Asian British backgrounds (9%) were more likely than those from White backgrounds (5%) to say that they didn’t have an adult they could talk to about their issues and problems.

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1. Young people of different ages were prompted with different types of uniformed groups appropriate to their age. For those aged 10 or 11 the list included Cubs, Scouts, Brownies, Guides, St John’s Ambulance, Police Cadets, Boys/Girls Brigade, Jewish Lads and Girls Brigade, Army Cadets; for those aged 12-17 the list comprised Scouts, Explorers, Guides, Rangers, St John’s Ambulance, Fire Cadets, Police Cadets, Boys/Girls Brigade, Jewish Lads and Girls Brigade, Army Cadets; and those aged 18 or 19 were asked about Scouts (Explorers, Network) Girlguiding (Rangers, Girlguiding Inspire), St John’s Ambulance, Fire Cadets, Police Cadets, Boys/Girls Brigade, Jewish Lads and Girls Brigade, Army Cadets. ↩

2. The question asked refers to a young person’s gender and was worded ‘which of the following best describes you?’ With the following answers to pick from ‘male, female, identify in another way, don’t know and prefer not to say’. ↩

3. This question has limitations as respondents could only pick one answer. ↩