Zainab Shehzadi has a long list of worries: robots stealing jobs from humans, the damage wreaked on the climate by previous generations, turmoil in other countries, fighting fierce competition to secure a job that pays enough to live a comfortable life.
It’s a lot for a 17-year-old to take on, but she sees it as a reflection of the uncertain world she has grown up in. “We’re living in an age where everything is changing very rapidly,” she says.
Zainab is a final year pupil at Goresbrook school in Dagenham, a neighbourhood in east London which has the highest concentration of teenagers, as well as some of the UK’s most-deprived postcodes.
She and five of her ambitious classmates shared their hopes, dreams, fears and worries for the future with the Guardian. All of them felt under pressure to achieve top grades, go on to higher education, gain work experience and expand their professional networks to compete for the limited roles at top paying professions, or face a life of financial struggle.
“[The younger generation] want the big jobs: corporate lawyers, businessmen, entrepreneurs – they want to make money. We live in a very high-competition environment. There’s a high number of people who want to get to the same point you want to go to, and there are people who’re better at the same things than you,” says Zainab.
She adds that there is a clear motivation for this: “I checked house prices the other day – crazy! I’m renting for the rest of my life.”
Aaron Akingbogun, 17, agrees. “It’s worrying, because if I don’t apply myself well and get grades I want, then it’s going to be harder for me to get where I want to be. You have to stand out,” he says.
The teenagers did, however, find some silver linings. They feel that there are growing opportunities for people from backgrounds historically under-represented in top professions, and that the internet is democratising access to the work placements that were previously the preserve of those with family connections.
Aaron starts every day trawling the internet to check for opportunities related to his dream career in law, including watching TikToks from former pupils recommending schemes to apply for. “With the amount of opportunities for people from my background, I have applied for a lot and been accepted, I’ve developed more networks than my parents would have at my age.”
While he and his classmates are grateful for the greater access to opportunities they have living on the outskirts of a big city, they are also fearful of knife crime in their area. Aaron sees the biggest challenge for young people in his neighbourhood as the lure of gangs and the status attached to “looking like a bad guy” on social media.
The teenagers all view the climate crisis as an ominous backdrop to more pressing everyday concerns. Aaron points out: “A couple of years ago you heard more about climate change, but now it’s the conflict in Ukraine, tensions between Taiwan and China, Palestine and Israel as well.”
Rather than worrying about climate breakdown, Maisie Froget-Aldridge, 17, thinks many of her peers are seduced by dreams of a “luxury life” they see promoted on Instagram. “Being happy is my main goal. A lot of people want to make millions whereas I want to have a settled life, have financial independence and not struggle.”
But even with her pragmatic aspirations she worries that the rising cost of living could stand in her way, as she has watched life become more expensive for her family. “It’s a worrying factor: will I be able to do everything I want to?”
Adina-Ioana Marchitan, 18, dreams of a career in politics, but sees several possible barriers: her “outsider” Romanian nationality; thriving in “male-dominated spaces” as a woman; and her Dagenham state school background. “I know things like that are improving but they’re still not up to standard, especially in politics.”
She feels the need to secure a high-paid job. “The price of things increasing is quite scary. One of the main reasons I picked politics as a career choice was so it would give me financial stability.”
While she is proud that she’s pursuing this goal with hard work, she worries that too many of her peers are lured by the get-rich-quick schemes they see on social media. “People are saying they’re not going to uni because of the things they’ve seen online. You can’t really convince people it’s a false idea. There’s AI-generated posts that say: ‘I got £1bn from this.’”
Adina-Ioana fears that social media is damaging for her peers’ self-esteem. “You’re comparing yourself to other people who have all this wealth, and you might think: why don’t I have that, why doesn’t my family have that. It leads to a lot of comparison – especially on social media where everything is so unrealistic.”
Aaron also worries that his attention span has been ruined by his phone. “I deleted social media for two days, I got bored and had to download again. People don’t know how to stave off boredom. Nobody wants to go out for a walk, they’d rather spend time on their phones.”
The teenagers all agreed that technology is a double-edge sword. Kurt Pegram-Robinson, 17, is worried that AI advances could render jobs in his desired field – business and management – obsolete. However, he adds: “It could create new types of jobs nobody has thought about.”
In the meantime, his most pressing concern is how he will afford university next year. “Family income is a major barrier for me. If I can’t be financially independent at uni I don’t think I’ll do as well.”
Rachael Babalola, 17, has seen how tough life with three children is for her parents, despite her dad having a good job as an engineer, and wants to work in the tech industry so she can afford a comfortable life, hopefully with four children.
She believes being proactive is the secret to success, with the best opportunities for those who research hardest. Yet she worries about how so many in her generation want to squeeze into the same high-paying jobs in tech, finance, law and medicine.
Like her classmates, she has limited faith in the social contract of working hard at school, going to university and living a comfortable life. “Lots of people with uni degrees can’t necessarily get a job. There’s a disparity between uni and the jump to an actual good job. It’s very competitive.”
