Help to Grow: Management — UK's Subsidised 12-Week Course for SME Leaders

Help to Grow: Management is a UK government programme, announced in the March 2021 Spring Budget, that subsidises a 12-week leadership training course for SME leaders, delivered by a network of business schools with 1:1 mentoring, peer learning and an alumni network.

The programme aims to improve SME leadership capability, resilience and growth by combining 12 taught modules with executive mentoring, at a subsidised participant fee of £750 with government covering roughly 90% of the true cost.

Between 2021 and 2025 the programme delivered 617 cohorts through 66 business schools, reaching 9,847 SME leaders; the Department for Business and Trade commissioned Ipsos, with the Institute for Employment Studies, to run an independent evaluation combining econometric analysis of administrative data, participant/non-participant surveys and qualitative interviews.

Self-reported outcomes were strong, with 90% of completers sharing learning within six weeks and greater reported confidence than non-participants, though engagement with mentoring was lower than planned (about a third completed the full ten hours). The econometric analysis found HtGM participation significantly increased business survival and resilience through COVID-19 and subsequent shocks, but found no statistically significant effect on business growth or firm-level productivity in the data available to March 2023.

The evaluators note that growth and productivity effects typically take five or more years to appear and recommend repeating the econometric analysis as more data becomes available; the programme is notable for reporting a clear positive effect (survival) alongside a clear null result (productivity) rather than overstating impact.