Next Steps

On this page:
Introduction Sweeps Introduction Latest from Next Steps New data: Age 32 Sweep COVID-19 survey and data Cohort profile Study features Popular documentation Data access Principal Investigator More related content

Next Steps, previously known as the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE), follows the lives of around 16,000 people in England born in 1989-90.

The study began in 2004 when the cohort members were aged 14, with an original sample of 15,770 people. Cohort members were surveyed annually until 2010, and the next sweep after this was when they were aged 25, in 2015-16.

The most recent sweep, the Age 32 Sweep, took place between 2022 to 2023.

What’s in the study?

Next Steps has collected information about cohort members’ education and employment, economic circumstances, family life, physical and emotional health and wellbeing, social participation and attitudes.

The Next Steps data has also been linked to National Pupil Database (NPD) records, which include the cohort members’ individual scores at Key Stage 2, 3 and 4 and more administrative linkages are planned (for example: Higher Education Statistics Agency, The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, Department for Work and Pensions).

What has the study found?

Next Steps has provided important evidence about the factors that influence young people’s performance at school and their educational transitions, and about the lives of young adults in their twenties. It has had a major impact on education policy, including raising the compulsory participation age in education and training, investing in vocational education and developing guidance for schools on how to stop bullying.

Research based on Next Steps has provided insight into bullying of disabled and sexual minority people and the role of subject choice and aspirations in educational trajectories.

The study has also contributed new evidence on the experiences in the labour market of young adults today, and in particular on the association between shift work and zero-hours contracts and mental health.

Who funds the study?

Next Steps is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The study was previously managed and funded by the Department for Education (2004-12).

Next Steps sweeps

There have been nine main Next Steps sweeps. The first seven sweeps were managed by the Department for Education. Click on a sweep below to learn more about the information collected.

Year
Age
2004
14
2005
15
2006
16
2007
17
2008
18
2009
19
2010
20
2015
25
2022
32

Watch the webinar: Introduction to Next Steps

Latest from Next Steps

News

Millennial women paid less than male colleagues in similar jobs

19 December 2024

Working women in their early 30s in England are paid less than men of the same age, in the same types of jobs, who have similar levels of education and work experience.

Event

Handling survey mode effects in the UK cohort studies

27 February 2025

This webinar will help researchers think about the possible consequences of mode effects in their research and describe methods for handling these in practice.

News

Only a quarter of millennials who want children are trying for them

4 October 2024

Two fifths of 32-year-olds in England want children – or more children, if they are already parents – but only one in four of them are actively trying to conceive.

News

Next Steps Age 32 data now available

18 September 2024

Data from the Next Steps Age 32 Sweep are now available to download from the UK Data Service.

New data: Age 32 Sweep

Two mothers pushing children in swing

Data from the Next Steps Age 32 Sweep are now available.

Find out more

COVID-19 survey and data

Data from all three waves of our survey of five national longitudinal cohort studies, including Next Steps, are now available. Find out about the topics covered, response and how to access the data.

Find out more

Cohort profile

Fang-Wei Wu, A., Henderson, M., Brown, M., Adali, T., Silverwood, R. J., Peycheva, D. and Calderwood, L.
Cohort Profile: Next Steps—the longitudinal study of people in England born in 1989–90
International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 53, Issue 6, December 2024
Read the full paper

Visit the CLS Bibliography

Our online Bibliography is an excellent resource for finding publications based on data from Next Steps as well as our other three studies. It includes thousands of publications and is searchable by study, year, author, journal name, title and abstract.

Special features of this study

Education data

The study was run by the Department for Education until 2013. It was designed to examine key factors affecting educational progress, attainment and transitions following the end of compulsory education.

Cohort members were interviewed every year between ages 14 to 19 (2004-2010), providing detailed and frequent repeat measures on education during this crucial period. The questionnaires covered attitudes to school, aspirations for future work and study and transitions to college, university and work. Resident parents were also interviewed for the first four sweeps.

The questionnaire data was supplemented by linked administrative data from the National Pupil Database including cohort members’ individual scores at Key Stage 2, 3 and 4.

The Age 25 sweep maintained a strong focus on education with questions on qualifications, further study, university applications and experience, and student fees and debt. Permissions to link to a wide range of educational administrative data on further and higher education were also collected, including Individualised Learner Records, Higher Education Statistics Agency, University and Colleges Admissions Service and Student Loans Company.

Study design

Next Steps is a major national cohort study following a representative sample of people born in 1989-90.

A number of notable design features make it distinct from the other cohort studies run by CLS:

  • Cohort members were recruited in adolescence, at age 13/14, rather than at birth.
  • Data was collected annually for the first seven sweeps.
  • Cohort members were recruited through schools.

The geographical scope of the study is England, rather than the United Kingdom or Great Britain.

Genetic data

At age 32, for the first time in Next Steps, data collection involved obtaining saliva samples for genotyping. This information will facilitate the analysis of both genetic and environmental factors on various outcomes, such as health or labour market outcomes, as well as enabling cross cohort comparisons with other British cohorts. Access is governed by the CLS Data Access Committee.

Quality controlled and imputed genetic data are available for 1,568 cohort members, obtained from 1,683 samples from consenting cohort members. Samples were obtained using the Oragene DNA kit and returned to a lab at the University of Bristol for DNA extraction, analysis, and storage.

More information on the genetic data available for research purposes is available on our genetic data and biological samples page.

Administrative data linkage

At age 25, cohort members were asked for their permission to link data from an extensive range of administrative records to their survey information.

Nine different consents were sought from four different domains – health, economic, education, and crime. Some of these data linkages are now in place and we are working towards the others.

Linked data currently available:

Health
Linked health data are available through the UK Data Service. This includes Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) in England for 1997-2017 and we are in the process of updating the data to 2023, including COVID-related ICD-10 codes.

A range of up-to-date linked health data (such as HES, mental health, cancer) are also available to access through the UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration.

Education
The following data are available through the UK Data Service:

  • Data from the National Pupil Database (NPD) for Key Stages 2, 3, 4 and 5 and school level data. Plans are underway to also link the NPD records via the UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration.
  • Data from Individualised Learner Records (ILR) which include data on further education.
  • Student Loans Company information, covering information on loan/grant entitlement, customer payments and institution attended.

Economic
The UK Longitudinal Collaboration will soon be linking records kept by the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue & Customs, including about benefit claims, participation in employment programmes, jobs, earnings, tax and National Insurance.

Sample design

The target population for the study was young people who were in Year 9 in English state and independent schools and pupil referral units in February 2004.

Cohort members were born between 1 September 1989 and 31 August 1990.

The sample design considered schools the primary sampling unit, with deprived schools being over-sampled by 50 per cent. Of 892 selected schools, 647 state and independent secondary schools as well as pupil referral units participated in the study. Within selected schools, pupils from minority ethnic groups (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Black African, Black Caribbean, and Mixed) were over-sampled to provide sufficient base sizes for analysis. The school and pupil selection approach ensured that, within a deprivation band and ethnic group, pupils had an equal probability of selection.

The issued sample for the Age 14 sweep was approximately 21,000 young people. A total of 15,770 households were interviewed in that initial sweep, representing 74 per cent of the target sample. For the Age 17 sweep, 352 Black Caribbean and Black African pupils, selected from the original schools sample, were added to the sample taking the total number of cohort members who had taken part in the study up to 16,122.

From ages 15-20, the target sample consisted of cohort members who had participated at the previous sweep. From the Age 25 sweep, the target sample was all cohort members who had ever taken part in the study.

Popular survey documentation

Next Steps Age 32 User Guide

This user guide provides information about the data arising from the Next Steps Age 32 sweep and supports the deposit of the data at the UK Data Archive.

Authors: Centre for Longitudinal Studies
Date published: 12/09/2024
PDF: 2,68 MB

Download

Next Steps Age 25 User Guide

This user guide accompanies the Next Steps Age 25 sweep.

Authors: Centre for Longitudinal Studies
Date published: 01/07/2021
PDF: 551,63 KB

Download

Data access

We’ve published guidance to help users find out what’s in our data.

Most Next Steps data are available through the UK Data Service. Visit the UK Data Service study page for Next Steps [SN 2000030].

Principal Investigator

Morag Henderson Professor of Sociology and Principal Investigator of Next Steps

Full UCL profile

Phone: 020 7911 5566
Email: morag.henderson@ucl.ac.uk

Dr Henderson’s main area of research is inequalities across the life course. More specifically she examines patterns in educational attainment, bullying and wellbeing.

Morag oversees all aspects of CLS’s work on Next Steps, and leads on the strategic and scientific direction of the study.

News

Find the latest developments and insights from across all our longitudinal studies.

CLS Bibliography

The CLS Bibliography is a searchable database of published work based on our cohort studies. Search by keyword, author, date range and journal.

Data access & training

Data from our studies are mainly available through the UK Data Service. We run training to support researchers who are interested in using our studies in their work.

Contact us

Centre for Longitudinal Studies
UCL Social Research Institute

20 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AL

Email: clsdata@ucl.ac.uk

Follow us
© Centre for Longitudinal Studies | Privacy policy | Cookie policy | Accessibility