Running a five-person business is harder than running a fifty-person one. You wear every hat. You also have less time and less money for the kind of senior management training that would actually help you grow. The UK government has known this for five years, and it has been paying 90% of the bill for SME owners to take a 12-week course built around how to run a growing business. Most owners have not heard of it.
Scheme: Help to Grow: Management
Course value: £7,500 (you pay £750)
Subsidy: 90% funded by the Department for Business and Trade
Next application deadline: 22 June 2026 (King’s College London cohort)
Eligible: UK businesses with 5 to 249 staff, trading 12+ months
What it is
Help to Grow: Management is a leadership and management course funded by the Department for Business and Trade. It is delivered through 68 accredited business schools across the UK, all part of the Small Business Charter network. The course runs for 12 weeks, with 50 hours of taught content, 10 hours of one-to-one mentoring, peer learning sessions, and a written growth plan you finish at the end. It is built for senior leaders of established small businesses, not first-time founders or solo consultants.
Who qualifies
Your business must be UK-registered, have been trading for at least one year, and employ between 5 and 249 people. Charities are not eligible. The person attending must be a senior decision-maker: chief executive, managing director, finance director, operations director, or someone with equivalent responsibility. Businesses with 10 or more staff can send up to two people from the senior team.
How much is available
The course is priced at £7,500. The government covers £6,750 of that, leaving the participant to pay £750. There is no cap on places nationally. Each business school recruits its own cohort of around 20 to 30 people, so spots at any one institution go quickly.
What you need to apply
To get through the application, you will need:
- Your Companies House registration number
- Headcount on payroll, evidenced by a recent payroll report or PAYE record
- Year of incorporation, which must be at least 12 months before the course start date
- A short statement on what you want to get out of the course
- Confirmation from your business that you can attend all 12 weeks of sessions
The deadline
Cohorts run year-round, so there is no single national deadline. The next cohort at King’s College London starts on 29 June 2026, with applications closing at 23:59 on 22 June 2026. The Birkbeck, University of London autumn cohort starts on 17 September 2026. Cranfield, Strathclyde, Exeter, Salford, and Northumbria all have summer and autumn cohorts open for applications now. The Small Business Charter listing page shows every school and start date.
Our take
This is one of the more underused offerings the government runs. The catch is time. Six hours a week for 12 weeks is a real commitment, and a lot of owners drop out because they cannot protect that time. The £750 makes sense if you are the senior decision-maker in a 5 to 30 person business that has plateaued and you want a structured push. If you are running a solo consultancy, the content will feel too advanced. If you are running a 200-person factory, much of it will feel too basic.
How to apply
Browse the cohort list at smallbusinesscharter.org/help-to-grow-management, pick a business school by location or start date, then apply through that school’s page. For general questions, email info@smallbusinesscharter.org.
The growth plan you produce on Help to Grow only works if you know which numbers in your business are actually moving and which are stuck. FinanceMOT gives you a financial health score from 0 to 100 across the four pillars of liquidity, profitability, efficiency, and solvency, plus a downloadable executive summary you can take into your mentor sessions. Walking into week one with a clear read on your current financial position means you spend the course working on the right problem instead of finding it.
