The First Rung Is Missing: Kent’s Stark Divide in Jobs for Young People

The postcode a young person calls home can make a huge difference to the number of realistic entry-level jobs around them.

In Kent and Medway, the gap is enormous.

New data from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) shows Canterbury has just 76 suitable vacancies for every 1,000 residents aged 18 to 24. Medway has 85 and Gravesham 90. At the other end of Kent’s labour market, Dartford has 230, Tunbridge Wells 231 and Tonbridge & Malling 258. Put another way, the rate in Tonbridge & Malling is around 3.4 times Canterbury’s.

Folkestone & Hythe sits between those extremes.

It has 128 suitable vacancies per 1,000 young adults — 18% above the UK average according to IPPR, but only eighth of the 13 Kent and Medway council areas. Dover does somewhat better at 138, while neighbouring Ashford reaches 161.

The full Kent and Medway picture is: Tonbridge & Malling 258; Tunbridge Wells 231; Dartford 230; Sevenoaks 182; Maidstone 168; Ashford 161; Dover 138; Folkestone & Hythe 128; Swale 116; Thanet 109; Gravesham 90; Medway 85; and Canterbury 76.

That’s quite a spread for one county.

But the figures need handling carefully. They aren’t unemployment rates, nor are they simply a count of every job currently sitting vacant. IPPR used Office for National Statistics data on online job adverts from July 2025 to June 2026, broken down by occupation. It defined “suitable” vacancies as occupations likely to offer entry-level opportunities because they have relatively low entry and experience requirements. The quarterly vacancy estimates were then measured against the number of 18 to 24-year-olds living in each council area, using mid-2025 population estimates.

So 128 in Folkestone & Hythe doesn’t mean 128 jobs are waiting for 1,000 unemployed young people. Some of those young adults will already be working or studying; people can commute across council boundaries; and some vacancies won’t appear in the online advertising data. What the measure does give us is a consistent indication of the amount of plausible entry-level opportunity relative to the size of the young population.

And here’s where it gets particularly interesting.

Kent County Council has already identified the underlying problem. Its Get Kent and Medway Working Plan says the county has a highly varied economy with significant differences in socio-economic outcomes. It says disparities tend to increase further away from London and towards coastal areas, while rates of 16 and 17-year-olds not in education, employment or training — NEET — are significantly above comparator areas, particularly in Medway.

For young people specifically, KCC and its partners identify Medway and parts of Folkestone, Gravesend, Maidstone and Thanet as priorities, based on Jobcentre Plus intelligence. They identify educational attainment, health and — crucially — opportunity among the barriers those young people face.

Now compare that with IPPR’s new numbers.

Medway is indeed near the bottom, with only 85 suitable vacancies per 1,000 young adults, while Gravesham — which contains Gravesend — has 90. Folkestone & Hythe, at 128, sits in the lower half of Kent and Medway. Yet Canterbury, with the lowest rate anywhere in Kent and Medway at 76, wasn’t singled out among KCC’s youth priority areas. Thanet, which was identified as a priority, sits almost exactly on the UK average at 109.

There is another wrinkle. KCC describes a broad socio-economic east-west divide, with eastern areas such as Thanet and Swale generally more deprived while western districts tend to be more affluent. IPPR’s jobs data doesn’t fall neatly into that pattern: Tonbridge & Malling, Tunbridge Wells and Dartford are right at the top, but Thanet sits around the national average while Canterbury is at the bottom. The youth jobs map is more complicated than a simple prosperous west versus struggling east.

KCC and its partners have set out what they intend to do. Their plan includes clearer information about apprenticeships for 16 to 19-year-olds, exploring whether apprenticeship starting dates can be better aligned with the academic year, improving careers advice and developing a work-placement pilot in Medway during the 2026/27 academic year. There is also a five-year ambition to strengthen 16–19 pathways and young people’s work readiness.

Perhaps the most pertinent promise, given IPPR’s findings, is to produce an interactive map of job locations, sector concentrations, public transport routes and population centres, overlaid with economic inactivity and deprivation data. KCC’s plan says that work should help identify geographical mismatches between where people live and where the jobs actually are. Its stated timetable for the mapping was 12 months.

There has been some implementation. In March 2026 KCC reported that the wider Connect to Work programme had recorded 834 enrolments, with 121 participants reporting their first earnings, and said work implementing the Get Kent and Medway Working Plan was continuing. Those figures cover the broader programme, rather than 18 to 24-year-olds specifically, so they can’t sensibly be compared directly with IPPR’s index.

IPPR’s figures nevertheless sharpen the local question. Young adults are told to gain qualifications, get experience, write the CV and get themselves into work. But the supply of plausible entry-level opportunities ranges from 76 per 1,000 in Canterbury to 258 in Tonbridge & Malling.

That’s not a small variation around the edges.

It’s a 3.4-fold gap in the first rung of the employment ladder within Kent and Medway.

The Shepway Vox Team

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