Quantitative research into the impacts of recent increases in the youth rates of the UK minimum wage

This Invitation to Tender is for quantitative research into the impacts of recent increases in the youth rates of the National Minimum Wage. In recent years, we have recommended a number of large increases to the 16-17 Year Old and 18-20 Year Old Rates of the minimum wage.

In addition, the current government has an ambition to move to a single adult minimum wage rate for all workers aged 18 and above. Our most recent remit asked the LPC to balance this ambition with the Government's concern about current levels of youth unemployment when making our recommendations on the 18-20 Year Old Rate.

Reducing the age of entitlement to the NLW to 18 would require significant increases in the wage floor for 18-20 year olds. It is therefore vital that the LPC has a robust evidence base for understanding the impact of recent increases in the youth rates of the minimum wage as well as the potential future impacts.

The LPC carries out its own descriptive and econometric analysis of the youth labour market and the impact of minimum wage increases. However, some of the key data sources we rely on, including the Labour Force Survey, have suffered from data quality issues since the pandemic.

We are therefore looking for research that would use alternative data sources and/or develop novel methods to provide robust quantitative estimates of the impact of increases in the youth rates of the minimum wage since 2020. The full requirement is set out in Schedule 07 of the Invitation to Tender document available on the Low Pay Commission website.

We anticipate bids in the range £30,000- £40,000 excluding VAT. The project will deliver results by September 2026 (with a final report due later in 2026).