Growing Up in the 2020s: a study of young people in England
Growing Up in the 2020s is a major national study following nearly 8,000 young people in England as they move through secondary school and into early adulthood.
Key information
Lead investigator: Prof. Jess Deighton
Funder: Department for Education
Partners: Ipsos and UCL
Duration: 5 years
Background to the study
Young people growing up in the 2020s are experiencing adolescence in a vastly different context from previous generations. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted their childhoods and education. Meanwhile, rapid technological change, social media and artificial intelligence are transforming how they learn, communicate and spend their time.
There are also growing concerns about young people’s mental health and inequalities in the opportunities and support available to them. Contemporary, long-term evidence is needed to understand how these experiences affect young people as they move through secondary school and into adulthood.
Growing Up in the 2020s is the first comprehensive national cohort study of secondary school-aged young people in England since the pandemic. By following the same young people over several years, the study will show how their experiences and outcomes change over time.
About Growing Up in the 2020s
The first wave of the study provides a nationally representative picture of young people who were in Year 8 in England during the 2024/25 academic year.
During wave 1 of the study, we interviewed 7,811 young people and their main parents or carers. We also engaged a total of 2,069 teachers, who provided information about 2,373 young people. The study draws on cognitive activities and linked education records.
We asked young people about different areas of their lives, including:
physical and mental health
family and friendships
experiences of school
bullying and school belonging
activities outside school
sleep and physical activity
social media and digital life
future aspirations.
The study deliberately included a larger number of young people eligible for free school meals so that researchers could examine socioeconomic inequalities in detail. The findings have been statistically weighted so that the results represent the wider Year 8 population in England.
Aims of the study
Follow young people over time
Follow the same young people and their families from age 12 or 13 through secondary school and into early adulthood.
Understand young people's whole lives
Bring together information to create a rounded picture of their experiences at home, at school and in their wider lives.
Examine inequalities
Examine how socioeconomic circumstances, special educational needs (SEN) and other characteristics shape young people’s opportunities, experiences and outcomes.
Build evidence for policy and practice
Create a high-quality national dataset to help researchers, policymakers and practitioners improve education, wellbeing and support for young people.
Wave one - A mixed picture
The first report provides a detailed picture of young people’s lives at age 12 and 13. It highlights many positive experiences, alongside important challenges and inequalities that are already apparent during the early secondary school years.
Download the reportKey findings
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94% felt neutral or happy with their life overall.
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25% met the screening criteria for a probable mental health disorder.
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Nearly one in five young people met the threshold for persistent absence from school.
What's going well?
94% felt neutral or happy with their life overall.
98% and 95% felt neutral or happy with their family relationships and friendships, respectively.
71% agreed or strongly agreed that they keep trying when they find something difficult.
Most young people also appeared to be getting enough sleep, with 90% reporting at least eight hours of sleep on a typical weekday.
What are the challenges?
The findings also identify areas where young people may need greater support.
25% met the screening criteria for a probable mental health disorder.
63% reported a sense of belonging at school, meaning that 37% did not.
17% met the recommended guideline of at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day.
Nearly one in five young people met the threshold for persistent absence from school.
Among young people who had experienced bullying, only 31% felt confident that school staff knew it was happening.
Are there any inequalities in young people’s experiences?
We found that challenges were not experienced equally. Young people eligible for free school meals and those receiving SEN provision tended to report less favourable experiences across their health, wellbeing, relationships and education.
36% of young people eligible for free school meals met the criteria for a probable mental health disorder, compared with 20% of other young people.
32% of pupils eligible for free school meals met the threshold for persistent absence, compared with 13% of pupils who were not eligible.
54% of young people receiving SEN provision felt that they belonged at school, compared with 66% of those without SEN provision.
Young people with SEN averaged 3.54 days a week with at least 60 minutes of activity, compared with 4.01 days among those without SEN. Young people eligible for free school meals (FSM) averaged 3.69 days compared with 4.00 days for non-FSM eligible young people.
What do these results mean?
The results provide a mixed picture of adolescent life in the 2020s. Many young people reported positive relationships, good overall wellbeing and successful adjustment to secondary school. However, a substantial proportion experienced difficulties with their mental health, school attendance, school belonging or access to activities and opportunities.
The findings also show that these difficulties are interconnected and not evenly distributed. Young people experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage and those with SEN frequently faced challenges across several areas of their lives at the same time.
Wave 1 is a baseline snapshot. It describes the patterns found in the data but cannot yet tell us what causes them or how individual young people’s experiences will change. Following the cohort over time will help us understand which gaps widen, narrow or remain stable and which experiences protect young people and support more positive outcomes.
Next steps
Growing Up in the 2020s will continue to follow students during Years 9, 11 and 12, allowing the research team to examine how their wellbeing, relationships, education and aspirations develop through adolescence.
The first themed report will examine findings from the Internet Use Sub-study. This study looks at a subset of young people who installed an app that recorded their smartphone internet activity over 28 days. This will allow researchers to explore how different patterns and types of online engagement relate to young people’s wellbeing and other experiences.
Future waves will combine repeated survey information with education records, including attendance and attainment data. This will help the study investigate:
whether the inequalities identified in Wave 1 widen or narrow
how home, school, friendships, health and digital life interact
which factors support resilience and positive development
how early experiences relate to later education, wellbeing and post-16 pathways.
Key findings reports
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Wave one key findings 2026
DownloadDownload the key findings report for wave one of Growing Up in the 2020s.
Meet the research team
Prof. Jess Deighton
Jess is Director of Growing up in the 2020s. She is also Director of Applied Research and Evaluation at Anna Freud, Professor of Child Mental Health and Wellbeing at UCL, and Director of the Evidence Based Practice Unit.
Tanya Lereya
Tanya is a Senior Research Fellow at Anna Freud. Her role in EOPS-C is research project manager.
Jess Stepanous
Jess is a Quantitative Research Fellow at Anna Freud. Her role in EOPS-C is research project management support and longitudinal data analysis.
Julian Edbrooke-Childs
Director of the Evidence Based Practice Unit and Head of Evaluation at Anna Freud
Prof Eamon McCroy
Eamon is CEO of Anna Freud and Professor of Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology at UCL where he co-directs the Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit.
Emla Fitzsimons
Emla is a Professor of Economics at UCL. Since 2014, she has served as the Principal Investigator of the Millennium Cohort Study, a major UK-wide longitudinal study tracking over 19,000 children born around the year 2000
Jake Anders
Jake is Professor of Quantitative Social Science, Deputy Director of the UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO) and Principal Investigator of the COVID Social Mobility & Opportunities (COSMO) study.
Larissa Pople
Larissa joined the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies in 2022 as part of the survey team working on the Millennium Cohort Study and more recently the Growing up in the 2020s study.
Nicholas Gilby
Nicholas works in Ipsos’ Probability Surveys Unit, with over 20 years of experience covering the technical aspects of complex social surveys.
Julia Pye
Julia works in Ipsos’ Probability Surveys Unit. She recently managed the fieldwork on UCL’s ‘Generation New Era’ feasibility study, which tested the methods for a planned new UK-wide birth cohort study.
Christy Lai
Christy works in Ipsos’ Probability Surveys Unit. Since joining the company in 2020 she has contributed to a range of research studies, including the ninth sweep of the Next Steps study which looked at the experiences of those born in 1989-90 at age 32.
