Housing affordability is reshaping career ambitions in ways that would have seemed unthinkable a decade ago. Sixty-five per cent of British teenagers now say being able to afford a home matters more than having a high-status job title, according to research published this week during National Apprenticeship Week 2026.
Barratt Redrow, Britain’s largest housebuilder, surveyed 2,000 young people aged 13 to 28 between late December and early January. The findings, drawn from the company’s ninth consecutive year tracking youth career attitudes reveal a generation actively rejecting the corporate paths their parents followed. Fifty-one per cent said climbing the corporate ladder is “not for them.” Just 22% expressed interest in office-based management roles. Meanwhile, 48% described earning a living from a skilled trade as more aspirational than traditional management jobs.
The shift has accelerated faster than many anticipated. Three years ago, 68% of 16- to 24-year-olds reported a general stigma attached to apprenticeships over university. That perception has crumbled. Today, 64% say apprenticeships are viewed more positively than they were a decade ago, and 52% say they’re likely to choose one.
What’s driving the change? Pragmatism born from economic anxiety. Twenty-eight per cent of teenagers identified earning enough to buy a home as one of their biggest worries about the future. Half cited good pay as the most important factor when considering careers, followed by work-life balance at 37%, feeling proud of their work at 33%, and job security at 27%. Status or job title ranked last, selected by just 8%.
The data reveals a generation recalibrating expectations against stubborn realities. Forty per cent believe trade jobs will earn more than office jobs by 2030, a striking prediction that reflects both optimism about skilled work and pessimism about white-collar prospects. Sixty-nine per cent think learning a trade can provide long-term financial security.
Parental career paths are being discarded wholesale. Sixty-one per cent want careers very different from their parents, while half say job titles matter less to them than to previous generations. Forty-seven per cent are choosing apprenticeships despite their parents attending university.
Office work, for this cohort, carries negative associations. Asked what they associate with corporate jobs, 31% said boring, 28% said long hours, another 28% said stressful, and 27% said lots of meetings. Only 14% linked office work with high status.
Yet there’s nuance beneath the rejection. Teenagers aren’t abandoning ambition—they’re redefining it around tangible outcomes. Fifty-nine per cent said managing people in an office is less appealing than learning a practical skill. Sixty-two per cent would rather master hands-on skills than navigate office politics. Sixty-seven per cent prefer managing their own work rather than supervising others.
Automation anxiety is amplifying the trend. Forty-eight per cent said concerns about artificial intelligence and automation have made office-based jobs less appealing—a fear that skilled trades, harder to automate, seem to answer.
For those choosing apprenticeships, motivations are practical. Forty-six per cent cited the chance to gain hands-on experience, 43% the ability to earn money immediately, 34% avoiding student debt, and 28% access to more job opportunities. The apprenticeship route offers what university increasingly doesn’t: immediate income, zero debt, and skills with visible market value.
David Thomas, chief executive of Barratt Redrow, framed the findings around industry need. “Young people joining our workforce want practical skills, financial security and careers where they can see the impact of their work,” he said. “Construction is well placed to offer all of that, with a wide range of roles, great pay and job security, whether through apprenticeships, graduate programmes or professional careers. As the industry faces a growing skills gap alongside increasing demand to build, investing in the next generation through skilled apprenticeships that lead to long-term careers, is not just good for construction, but essential for the future of UK housebuilding.”
Timing the announcement during National Apprenticeship Week, Barratt Redrow opened 207 new apprenticeship positions. The company is betting that construction, with its combination of decent pay, job security, and tangible output can meet the priorities this generation has articulated.
Whether the industry can capitalise remains uncertain. Just 9% of teenagers said they’re most interested in working in construction, despite the sector offering many attributes young people claim to value. Awareness remains a stubborn barrier.
What’s clear is that traditional markers of success—corner offices, management titles, vertical career trajectories are losing their grip on the generation entering the workforce. Whether that represents a temporary correction or a permanent cultural shift will become apparent in the years ahead. For now, teenagers are voting with their feet, and they’re walking away from the corporate ladder their parents climbed.
The research, conducted by Censuswide, captured responses from young people navigating a landscape their parents barely recognise: one where housing feels unattainable, university debt looms large, and artificial intelligence threatens the very jobs once considered safe. In that context, choosing to learn bricklaying or plumbing over pursuing an MBA doesn’t signal lowered ambition. It signals recalibrated realism.
By February 2026, the question isn’t whether teenagers still want successful careers. It’s whether the definition of success itself has fundamentally changed.