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With the US president in town, and lots of announcements recently made about high-level tech investment, we're turning our focus this mid-month spotlight to young people at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum, and how they might be helped to share the benefits of this technologising labour market.
Motivating Futures: Positive early findings from our intervention pilot
Yesterday, IFOW team members travelled to Birmingham for a stakeholder engagement session hosted by the EY Foundation and West Midlands Combined Authority. We presented early findings from the pilot intervention we have been testing with cohorts of young people across the country, and met with expert stakeholders from across the region - firms, regional leadership and career support organisations - to listen and discuss how the findings might inform and enhance their work.
The importance of internalised motivation for the future of work
The intervention pilot was designed to respond to research from Stage 1 of the Motivating Futures project, which combined desk research with a Future Work Lab listening to young people in schools and colleges.
What we know from our Pissarides Review is that new technologies offer great opportunities for enhancing access to good work. But, left unchecked, these technological developments also risk further entrenching existing inequalities.
Why intrinsic motivation matters in an AI economy
Our research has found that human-centric skills like creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving are becoming increasingly important during this period of change. These are precisely the capabilities that flourish when young people are intrinsically motivated - when they engage in learning and work for inherent satisfaction rather than external rewards alone.
Our research supported broadening this understanding to encompass internalised forms of motivation, which may have extrinsic dimensions (such as earning money to support a family), but are also driven by internal values, or support building an identity.
The theory of change behind our pilot intervention
If we can nurture more internalised motivation among young people, and direct this towards work, then these young people will be better able to acquire and hone the human-centric skills that we know are in greater demand in this technologising labour market.
In short, we want to find ways to give young people from low-income backgrounds better opportunities to access good jobs and flourish in a rapidly changing world of work.
Based on findings from the Stage 1 research of Motivating Futures, we designed a pilot intervention to cultivate intrinsic and internalised motivation in young people and help direct this towards futures of work that align with their values.
Yesterday, our team presented early findings to stakeholders from across the West Midlands:
Young people have also provided very clear positive feedback on being given the space to engage in reflective exercises around motivation and futures of work. Emerging analysis of survey data also suggests significant positive impacts from this intervention.
What’s next? We will be sharing more on our findings at party conferences, and will be publishing a full Stage 2 report at the end of October 2025. We are also keen to do a wider pilot and further cross-agency research to best understand how a larger roll-out could be done, accounting for what we have learned about pressure points in schools, and priorities for firms.
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