9.4% of young adults (16-25) in London are unemployed, compared with 3.6% of 25 to 64 year olds. This figure is also high than the UK-wide youth unemployment rate of 8.3%.
Youth unemployment rates are higher in inner London than outer London and whilst rates have fallen from a peak of 13.9% in 2013, almost a quarter are in insecure employment. Young adults are also most at risk of being paid less than the London Living Wage.
This is despite 65% of 19 year olds in London having a level 3 qualification, and 59% of the most disadvantaged students in inner London moving into Higher Education.
This landscape of good qualifications but high unemployment is set against a cricketing backdrop of low opportunities. With so few cricket clubs in inner London, there is currently only capacity of 0.06% of inner London's Primary School aged children to take up cricket if they wanted to.
Cricket clubs' junior sections traditionally rely on volunteers and NCVO research shows that across the UK, sports club attract the most volunteers (50%).
However, in deprived, urban areas only around 15% volunteer and in the most deprived areas of inner London, as few as 3% support sport and physical activity. There is strong evidence that those who are degree educated and/or who hold professional job roles are also much more likely to volunteer than those who are not.
