Funding | City & Guilds Foundation

Insights from our Transition Commission: Supporting young people at critical life stages

by Lauren Roberts | 24 Apr 2026 | News, Transitions Commission, Youth engagement

This week, partners from the first round of Transition Commission funding came together to share progress and early learnings from their programmes. While still in the early stages, the discussion highlighted the importance of targeted, local support in helping young people at risk of disengaging from education, training or employment. Why this work matters At the start of our meeting Laura-Jane Rawlings, Chair of our Transition Commission and CEO at Youth Employment UK, gave an update on the...

Place based skills pathways that start with trust and are leading to work – our Local Community Skills Fund

by Laura Mountain | 30 Mar 2026 | Charity partners, Funding, Local Community Skills Fund, News, News & events, Our networks

Across the UK, people who face the greatest barriers to work often live in the communities least served by mainstream skills provision. They are talented, capable and motivated, but too often held back by structural disadvantage, low confidence, disrupted education, potential trauma, caring responsibilities or simple lack of opportunity. Last year we created our Local Community Skills Fund (LCSF) to respond to this reality. We wanted to back organisations rooted in place, trusted by local...

City & Guilds Foundation and Offploy partner to Upskill the Voluntary Sector

by Lauren Roberts | 17 Dec 2025 | Charity partners, News, Prisoners and ex-offenders, Resources

Offploy is delighted to announce a new partnership with the City & Guilds Foundation to provide over 200 professionals in the voluntary sector with scholarships to industry-leading training on supporting people with criminal convictions. Offploy are Princess Royal Training Award recipients and this collaboration builds on the relationship.

Celebrating 25 years of our bursary programme: Transforming lives, families and communities

by Lauren Roberts | 8 Dec 2025 | Bursaries, Funding, News, News & events

2025 marks a major milestone: 25 years of the our bursary scheme. In 2000, City and Guilds of London Institute celebrated its Charter Centenary by awarding 100 bursaries and since then the programme has helped thousands of people overcome financial and personal barriers to access the training they need to move forward in life and work. At its heart, the bursary programme embodies the City & Guilds Foundation’s values: creating opportunities for everyone to succeed, no matter who they are...

City & Guilds Foundation supports women to gain DIY skills through new housing partnership

by Laura Mountain | 24 Nov 2025 | Funding, News, News & events

City & Guilds Foundation has awarded funding to support a pilot project led by employment support social enterprise Frameworks, in partnership with Build Salford and Salix Homes, a key provider of social housing in Salford. The Women in Maintenance project has so far supported seven female social housing residents to gain home maintenance skills including carpentry, tiling and plumbing - empowering them to maintain their own homes and improving their access to paid work. Four of the...

£247,000 awarded to support young Londoners’ futures

by Polly Rowe | 18 Nov 2025 | Funding, News, News & events, Transitions Commission

We’re pleased to announce the first round of funding from our newly established Transitions Commission, which has seen us award £247,000 in grants to three London-based charities which are dedicated to helping young people move successfully into education and employment. This initiative comes at a critical time. Across the UK, nearly one million young people are not in education, employment, or training (NEET)—the highest level in over a decade. In London, youth unemployment stands at 14.6%,...

Transforming access to STEM with EngineeringUK

by Lauren Roberts | 14 Nov 2025 | Campaigning, Charity partners, Funding, News, News & events, Our networks, Youth engagement

We’re proud to announce a groundbreaking five-year partnership with EngineeringUK aimed at improving access to high-quality STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths) experiences for secondary school students across the UK. This initiative represents a significant investment in the future workforce and a commitment to tackling the persistent skills gap in engineering and technology. Why this work matters and what we’re doing STEM careers are critical to the UK economy, yet many young...

Co-op’s Levy Share to support UK’s first Prisoner Apprenticeship programme to address rail skill shortages and reduce reoffending

by Laura Mountain | 29 Jul 2025 | Awards alumni, News, News & events, Prisoners and ex-offenders, Social Impact

In a first, Co-op and City & Guilds partner to address reoffending and rail skills shortages with guaranteed employment pathways. Co-op to offer a dedicated levy share service to support apprenticeships for serving prisoners who’ll go on to work in the rail sector. The Level 2 Rail Engineering operative apprenticeships will be based at HMP Highpoint in Suffolk delivering vital hands-on training for the UK rail sector. Reoffending costs the UK economy over £21bn a year—this initiative aims...

Listen. Learn. Support. What Refugee Week Reminds Us about Community

by Lauren Roberts | 23 Jun 2025 | Awareness Raising, Campaigning, Charity partners, Lived Experience, News, News & events, Our networks, Refugee support, Social Impact

At City & Guilds, we believe in the life-changing power of skills. But we also know that skills alone aren’t always enough to help people succeed. That’s why, through the City & Guilds Foundation we’ve been working with grassroots charities and partners since 2022 to help refugees and displaced people access training, build confidence, and find meaningful work. Here’s a little bit about the impact we’re making. Since launching our Displaced People Fund in 2022, we’ve: Supported...

City & Guilds Foundation grants much-needed funding to 20 charities aiming to boost skills and training across the UK

by Stuart Tucker | 16 Apr 2025 | Funding, Local Community Skills Fund, News, News & events

Charities, social enterprises and training providers in the UK and Northern Ireland benefit from small grants of up to £10,000 set to make a big difference to communities New skills initiative supporting organisations working to improve access to skills and development Launched as a pilot scheme in January of this year, the Local Community Skills Fund has now awarded a total of £144108 in grants of up to £10,000 to twenty charities, social enterprises and training providers across the UK....