Australia’s 2025–26 Youth in STEM survey by YouthInsight explored young people’s awareness and perceptions of STEM subjects and careers. The analysis below summarises key findings from YouthInsight’s report.
Interest, confidence and career aspirations in STEM
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You can use the interactive data below to compare interest, confidence, barriers and career aspirations of girls and boys at different ages and across different diversity groups.
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The 2025–26 Youth in STEM research surveyed 3,001 young people aged between 12 and 25 years. It was the fifth survey in the program, following Youth in STEM surveys in 2018–19, 2019–20, 2021–22 and 2023–24.
See further insights into this data in Perceptions and attitudes to STEM among gender diverse youth.
The survey asked questions to understand young peoples’ awareness and perception of STEM subjects and careers. Participants came from all states and territories across Australia.
To ensure survey results represented the population, weighting corrected for under- or over-representation of sub-groups by gender, age, location, country of birth and socioeconomic status (SEIFA 1–5 lower socioeconomic status, SEIFA 6–10 higher socioeconomic status).
Our department commissioned YouthInsight to carry out this survey. In 2024–25 they surveyed parents, teachers and career advisers to complement the youth survey.
Refer to the 2025–26 Youth in STEM survey report for more detailed information and project methodology.
Read the previous Youth in STEM survey report for 2023–24.
Read about our methodology.
Data insights
Interest in STEM
Girls’ interest in STEM subjects has not changed greatly since the survey program began in 2018–19.
Science remained the most interesting STEM subject for girls in 2025–26.
- 61% of girls were interested in science in 2025–26, compared to 63% in 2023–24.
- 64% of boys were interested in science in 2025–26, compared to 62% in 2023–24.
Girls continue to be least interested in engineering.
- 30% of girls were interested in engineering in 2025–26, compared to 29% in 2023–24
- 60% of boys were interested in engineering in 2025–26, compared to 56% in 2023–24.
Confidence in STEM
Of all STEM subjects, girls are most confident in science and least confident in engineering. This has remained the same since the survey program began in 2018–19.
The data shows that, among girls, confidence in STEM subjects generally decreases with age. The following table shows girls’ confidence in STEM subjects at different ages.
| Subject | 12–13 years | 14–17 years | 18–21 years | 22–25 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Science | 71% | 65% | 64% | 53% |
| Technology | 73% | 46% | 50 | 53% |
| Engineering | 41% | 30% | 25 | 25% |
| Mathematics | 63% | 63% | 58 | 47% |
The youngest age group, 12–13 years, had increases in confidence levels since the previous survey, particularly for engineering and mathematics.
- 41% of girls aged 12–13 years expressed confidence in engineering in 2025–26, compared to 31% in 2023–24
- 63% of girls aged 12–13 years expressed confidence in mathematics in 2025–26, compared to 54% in 2023–24.
However, for the oldest age group, 22–25 years, confidence levels fell across all STEM subjects since the last survey.
- 53% of girls aged 22–25 years expressed confidence in science in 2025–26, compared to 60% in 2023–24
- 53% of girls aged 22–25 years expressed confidence in technology in 2025–26, compared to 59% in 2023–24
- 25% of girls aged 22–25 years expressed confidence in engineering in 2025–26, compared to 30% in 2023–24
- 47% of girls aged 22–25 years expressed confidence in mathematics in 2025–26, compared to 50% in 2023–24.
Importance of STEM knowledge for jobs
Girls considered technology and mathematics skills to be important to future employment. This is consistent with results across the survey program.
- Technology was the most important subject for girls in 2025–26. Among girls, 82% thought it was important, while among boys, 86% thought it was important. In 2023–24, 80% of girls thought technology was important.
- Engineering remained the least important subject for girls. Just 55% of girls thought it was important to get a good job in future, compared with 71% of boys.
Intention to study STEM in the future
Consistent with previous surveys, 54% of girls in years 6–8 said they were likely to choose STEM elective subjects overall in future, compared with 82% of boys.
In years 9–10, girls were less likely than boys to choose STEM elective subjects overall in future. The difference was smaller in the older age group, with 90% of girls indicating they would choose STEM subjects in future, compared to 96% of boys.
Year 9–10 girls were significantly more likely to intend to study biology, which was also found in the 2023–24 survey.
Boys were significantly more likely to choose industrial technology, engineering and information and digital technology. While there is a skew towards boys in years 9–10 to choose physics electives in future, it is not statistically significant.
In years 11–12, 27% of girls were likely to choose STEM elective subjects overall in future, compared to 44% of boys. As people in these year levels are considering their higher education study intentions, this finding suggests that girls are more likely than boys to complete their formal STEM education at high school. Girls who continue their studies are less likely to choose STEM fields of education.
Reasons for not studying STEM in the future
Survey participants who indicated they were not considering further study in STEM were asked for their reason.
Most girls in this group agreed they would not study STEM in the future because it did not relate to the career they wanted and they were not interested in the subjects.
Girls’ agreement with the following reasons was significantly higher than boys:
- It’s not related to the career I want (78% compared to 67%)
- I’m not really interested in the subjects (73% compared to 55%)
- They are too hard for me (52% compared to 42%)
- Don’t think I’m smart enough (46% compared to 37%).
Aspirations for a STEM career in the future
Girls were half as likely as boys to aspire to a career in STEM. This is similar to previous surveys. In the 2025–26 survey, 20% of girls wanted a STEM career compared to 45% of boys. In the 2023–24 survey, 22% of girls wanted a STEM career, compared to 43% of boys.
The most popular STEM career girls aspired to was scientist (8%). For boys it was engineer (18%), followed by computer or information technology (15%), data analyst (9%) and scientist (8%).
There were differences in STEM career aspirations among girls in diverse groups. Girls in these groups were more likely to aspire to a STEM career:
- Non-First Nations people: 20% of girls wanted a STEM career, compared to 10% of First Nations girls.
- Culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds: 25% of girls wanted a STEM career, compared to 16% of girls from non-CALD backgrounds.
- Areas of higher socioeconomic status: 23% of girls wanted a STEM career, compared to 15% of girls from areas of lower socioeconomic status.
- Metropolitan locations: 22% of girls wanted a STEM career, compared to 15% of girls from regional locations.
Comparison of key items across surveys
Explore the interactive dashboard
You can use the interactive data below to compare interest, importance, confidence, and gender bias of girls and boys across time (across multiple occurrences of the survey).
Learn more about the data
The Power BI dashboards in the monitor present data in different formats, including charts, graphs and tables. You can customise these dashboards based on what you're interested in.
- Filter the data: Click the options on the left side of each dashboard and make your selections.
- Find more information about a specific data point: Hover your cursor over the dashboard to reveal more information, such as counts or percentages, if available.
- Reset the page to its original selections: Click the button labelled ‘Refresh to default view’ in the bottom left corner of the page.
- Move between different pages in a dashboard: Click the buttons along the top of the dashboard, if available.
The 2025–26 Youth in STEM research surveyed 3,001 young people aged between 12 and 25 years. It was the fifth survey in the program, following Youth in STEM surveys in 2018–19, 2019–20, 2021–22 and 2023–24.
See further insights into this data in Perceptions and attitudes to STEM among gender diverse youth.
The survey asked questions to understand young peoples’ awareness and perception of STEM subjects and careers. Participants came from all states and territories across Australia.
To ensure survey results represented the population, weighting corrected for under- or over-representation of sub-groups by gender, age, location, country of birth and socioeconomic status (SEIFA 1–5 lower socioeconomic status, SEIFA 6–10 higher socioeconomic status).
Our department commissioned YouthInsight to carry out this survey. In 2024–25 they surveyed parents, teachers and career advisers to complement the youth survey.
Refer to the 2025–26 Youth in STEM survey report for more detailed information and project methodology.
Read the previous Youth in STEM survey report for 2023–24.
Read about our methodology.
Data insights
Gender bias – which gender is better at STEM subjects
When asked which gender is ‘better’ at STEM subjects, most young people did not hold a gender bias.
Gender bias was quite consistent for all STEM subjects in 2025–26.
As shown in the table below, similar proportions of survey participants said that neither gender is better at each subject, when compared with the 2023–24 survey.
| Neither girls or boys are better at... | 2021–22 survey | 2023–24 survey | 2025–26 survey |
|---|---|---|---|
| Science | 74% | 69% | 70% |
| Technology | 68% | 63% | 65% |
| Engineering | 64% | 58% | 58% |
| Mathematics | 72% | 68% | 69% |
There are similarities between responses from girls and boys on this question. Science had the highest agreement across genders that girls are ‘better’. Twenty-one per cent of girls said girls were better at science, and 14% of boys also said girls were better at science.
The opposite was found for engineering. It’s the subject with the highest agreement from both genders that boys are ‘better’ (32% of girls said this and 43% of boys).
Understanding the STEM acronym
Understanding of which subjects make up STEM increased in the current survey.
- 73% of girls understood what subjects made up STEM, compared to 71% in 2023–24
- 72% of boys understood what subjects made up STEM, compared to 71% in 2023–24.
Impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI)
In 2025–26, young people were asked about their perceptions of generative AI and the influence on choices about their future. It is clear that young people feel influenced and affected by this technology.
The survey asked whether young people believe that generative AI tools such as ChatGPT would have a significant impact on work and careers in the future. A significantly higher proportion of young people in 2025–26 said yes to this (88%), compared to young people in 2023–24 (82%).
Overall, 32% of young people agreed that recent developments in AI have made them reconsider their study or career choices, compared to 29% in 2023–24. This is also a statistically significant increase. Breaking this down:
- 9% of young people were reconsidering their study choices
- 10% were reconsidering their career
- 13% were reconsidering both their study choices and career.
Boys were significantly more likely to say that AI had made them reconsider their prospects overall (37% compared to 27% of girls). They were more likely to say they were:
- reconsidering their study choices (11% compared to 6% of girls)
- reconsidering their career (11% compared to 9%)
- or reconsidering both their study choices and career (15% compared to 11%).
Just over half (52%) of young people reported that generative AI tools made them feel more confident participating in STEM subjects. This was significantly higher among boys (58%) compared to girls (46%).
Around one quarter (24%) of young people reported that generative AI tools made them feel less confident participating in STEM subjects. There was no significant gender difference for feeling less confident in STEM due to generative AI tools, with 24% of girls and 23% of boys reporting this.