Gone are the days of the 6am alarm to wake up bolt upright and deliver papers in miserable rain before school.
A new survey has found that Generation Z are snubbing the traditional Saturday job and looking to become social media influencers to make their own pocket money.
A new study from NatWest Thrive found just one in seven (15%) 16- and 17-year-olds are making money from a casual role such as working in a clothes shop, stacking shelves or doing a paper round.
This is a stark comparison to more than a third (35%) of adults saying they had some kind of Saturday shift or job before school at the same age.
Former Gogglebox star Joe Baggs, fronting a campaign to help young people make sound financial decisions, said: ‘When I started out, I had to learn a lot about money as I went, and that’s often the part you don’t see behind the success stories.
‘Money skills matter, whatever route you take, and having that knowledge early can make a real difference.’
But the new trend could also be creating a sizeable new teenage economy, with the average youngster having topped up their pocket money by £389 through a side hustle in the last year.
That means across the 1.6 million teens in the UK, it is around £640,000,000 in side-hustle cash.
Teenagers have very different ideas about where that money could come from, with creating social media content (44%) topping the list of the most popular earners.
Another 42% would like to make money from a small business, while 38% are interested in gaming and streaming, dog walking and pet care.
Cooking and baking and photography each appeal to 37%, while 35% would like to make cash by reselling clothes or other items online.
Many have already started experimenting with alternative ways to bring in money and more than half (56%) have sold things they no longer wanted, while more than one in four (27%) have babysat and nearly a quarter (22% ) have charged for a skill or hobby.
One in five (20%) have helped in a family business and 19% have bought things specifically to resell for profit.
The changing approach to earning appears to extend into their plans for adult life too, with four in five (80%) saying they want at least two different sources of income, while 34% are set on three or more.
More than a third (34%) would also choose entrepreneurship over a secure role.
The reasons why teens are no longer interested in Saturday jobs is heavily due to AI, the survey showed, with more than a third (35%) saying they already use it to come up with business ideas, while 15% use tech to create social media content and 9% to build websites.
But teenagers are not completely convinced by the success stories they encounter online, and two in five (41%) think content creators make success look quicker than it probably is.
More than a third want entrepreneurs to be more open about how long it took to make a profit (37%), mistakes they made (36%) and how much money they needed to get started (35%).
NatWest is launching Money Talks by NatWest Thrive to help 16- and 17-year-olds navigate the financial decisions involved in building income outside a traditional salary.
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