Young Workers with Disabilities: Navigating the Transition from Education to Employment
The Transition Gap
The transition from education to employment is one of the most critical and vulnerable periods for young people with disabilities:
- UK: Only 5.1% of young people with learning disabilities are in paid employment at age 25 (NDTI, 2023)
- US: Youth with disabilities are twice as likely to be neither in employment nor education compared to their non-disabled peers (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- EU: Young people with disabilities have a NEET rate 10 percentage points higher than their non-disabled peers (Eurofound, 2022)
Supported Internships (UK)
Supported internships are structured study programmes for young people aged 16–24 with an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan. Key features:
- The student spends most of their time (typically 70%+) at a workplace placement
- A job coach provides on-site support, gradually fading as the student develops independence
- The goal is paid employment at the host employer or elsewhere upon completion
- Conversion rates to paid employment reach 36%+ in well-run programmes (DfE, 2022) — dramatically higher than the general employment rate for this group