The Datum Report

Occupation 2464 · Professional occupations

Youth work professionals

Half of full-time youth work professionals in the UK earn more than £36,620 a year, and half earn less.

Youth work professionals look after the welfare and support the development of young people.

How people enter it

Professional youth workers require an accredited qualification at degree level, recognised by the National Youth Agency. Experience working with young people may also be useful. Background checks including a DBS check are likely to be required.

What the work involves

• provides activities to assist young people develop and fulfil their potential as individuals and within the community
• develops relationships with and provides guidance to young people
• advises and supports young people experiencing stress or crisis
• mentors and counsels young people with mental health problems
• manages volunteers and part-time workers, and liaises with other relevant professionals
• keeps records and controls budgets

Also called

Youth and community officer · Youth worker (professional)

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for youth work professionals, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 0 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Clergy · Probation officers · Social workers · Welfare professionals n.e.c.