Statistics · Data Briefing

Youth engagement in the UK: the data

What the evidence tells us — about a 6-minute read

This briefing summarises what current, publicly available UK research tells us about youth political engagement. It draws on data from the House of Commons Library, the British Election Study, the Hansard Society, Ipsos, the Electoral Reform Society and the Constitution Society. We try, throughout, to be careful about what the evidence does and doesn't show — and to note where different sources give different figures.

A short word on accuracy. Turnout figures are reported in different ways: some are based on official voting records, others on post-election surveys, which tend to overstate turnout because people who didn't vote are sometimes reluctant to say so. Where two sources disagree, we say so. This briefing is not the final word — it is a starting point for understanding the shape of the evidence.

1. Overall turnout is falling

Turnout at the 2024 UK general election was 59.7%, according to the House of Commons Library. That is the lowest at a UK general election since 2001, and a fall of 7.6 percentage points from the 2019 election. The Commons Library notes that this was the largest drop in turnout between elections since the fall between 1997 and 2001.

For long-term context: turnout in 1950 reached 83.5%. Between 1922 and 1997 it never fell below 70%. Since 2001 it has not returned to that level.

2. Youth turnout is markedly lower than older-voter turnout

This is the clearest pattern in the data. Younger voters consistently turn out at lower rates than older voters, and the gap has widened over recent decades.

According to figures from the British Election Study cited in a February 2026 Electoral Reform Society briefing, reported turnout at the 2024 general election was 65.4% among 18–24-year-olds, compared with 88.6% among those aged 66 and over. (Reported turnout in post-election surveys tends to be higher than actual turnout, so these figures should be read as comparative rather than absolute.)

Ipsos, using a different methodology, estimated 2024 turnout among 18–24-year-olds at around 37% (down from 47% in 2019), and among 25–34-year-olds at around 41% (down from 55%). Ipsos themselves caution that survey-based turnout estimates carry meaningful uncertainty.

The headline point holds across methodologies: young people vote at lower rates than older people, and that gap is substantial. Historically this was not always the case — in the 1964 election, turnout among 18–24-year-olds was 76.4%, compared with 76.7% for over-65s. The gap has opened up over recent decades, not closed.

3. Many young people feel their vote doesn't matter

A YouGov poll cited by the Economics Observatory found that 37% of 18–24-year-olds did not believe their vote was important to the 2024 general election result, compared with a national average of 29% and 23% among the over-65s. This sense of low political efficacy — the feeling that participating doesn't change anything — appears to be more widespread among younger voters.

4. The voting age is being lowered to 16

According to the House of Commons Library briefing on the Representation of the People Bill 2024–26, the UK government is proposing to lower the voting age to 16 for all elections in time for the next general election. The bill, currently before Parliament, would enfranchise approximately 1.7 million additional young people.

Polling on the policy is mixed. Public opinion is divided — more people oppose than support the change overall — although support is stronger among younger age groups. Polling of 16- and 17-year-olds conducted by Merlin Strategy for ITV News (cited by Humanium) found that only 18% said they would definitely vote if there was an election tomorrow.

Some context worth noting: 16- and 17-year-olds in Scotland and Wales already vote in devolved and local elections. Research by Eichhorn and Hübner on the Scottish experience has suggested that young people enfranchised at 16 are more likely to vote than those enfranchised at 18 — though as with any single piece of research, caution is warranted in generalising.

5. Trust in politics matters too

Engagement is not only about turnout; it is also about whether people trust the institutions they are being asked to engage with. The Hansard Society's annual Audit of Political Engagement and the British Social Attitudes survey both track public confidence in democratic institutions over time, and both have charted long-term declines. Younger people are not uniquely distrustful — declines are visible across age groups — but the combination of low turnout, low efficacy and low trust is a particular concern for the youngest cohort.

6. Civic education in schools varies widely in practice

Citizenship has been a statutory subject in the secondary national curriculum in England since 2002. In practice, however, delivery varies considerably between schools. The Constitution Society reported in 2025 that "a minority of young people in English secondary schools benefit from regular teaching on the core legal, political and civic knowledge which makes up our constitution," and that for many students, citizenship is delivered through "sporadic and disparate episodes" rather than dedicated curriculum time. Since then, the government's Curriculum and Assessment Review has recommended — and the government has accepted — making citizenship statutory at primary level too, with the new curriculum due to take effect from September 2028.

This matters because the link between school-based civic education and later political participation is well established. Research cited by the Hansard Society finds that participating in citizenship-related activities at school — such as mock elections — makes young people more likely to engage in political activity as adults, even when controlling for other factors like later educational attainment.

What this evidence taken together suggests

No single statistic in isolation tells the whole story. Taken together, however, the evidence points in a consistent direction:

• Young people in the UK are less likely to vote than older people, and the gap is significant.
• Many young people do not feel that their participation makes a meaningful difference.
• The voting age is being extended downward, which makes the question of preparation more urgent, not less.
• School-based civic education is associated with greater participation in later life — but delivery in practice is patchy.

None of this on its own proves any particular policy is the right one. What it does show is that the question — how do we prepare young people for democratic life? — is one the evidence keeps pushing back to the surface.

Sources used in this briefing: House of Commons Library (2024 general election turnout; Representation of the People Bill 2024–26); Electoral Reform Society (Briefing on Votes at 16, February 2026); Ipsos (How Britain voted in the 2024 election); Economics Observatory (Voter turnout in parliamentary elections, citing YouGov); Humanium (citing Merlin Strategy / ITV News polling); House of Lords Library (Votes at 16, 2025); Eichhorn and Hübner (Votes-at-16 in Scotland, 2023); The Constitution Society (Why we need more teaching and learning about UK democracy, 2025); Curriculum and Assessment Review Final Report (November 2025); Hansard Society (Audit of Political Engagement; Mock Elections research). All sources are publicly available and most are linked to from the originals — we encourage readers to follow them up.