18 Jun 2026
By Albany HR.
Advice from an HR consultant in Edinburgh on the £3,000 youth hiring grant, the £2,000 apprenticeship incentive, and how to prepare your business before you apply.
As an owner of a small business, you’ve almost certainly noticed that the cost of employing people has gone up.
Between NI increases, new statutory sick pay rules, and expanded leave entitlements, every hire feels more expensive than it did a year ago.
The government has just introduced a grant scheme that puts cash back in your pocket when you take on a young worker.
But there are a few things worth thinking about before you apply. Let me walk you through what’s available and what you’ll need to have in place.
The financial burden of having a team has increased across several fronts recently. Employer National Insurance contributions went up following the budget. Day-1 statutory sick pay is now part of the Employment Rights Act. Leave entitlements have been expanded. And the list of compliance obligations keeps growing.
All of this adds up. For a small business, each new cost chips away at your margins and makes you think twice before bringing someone new on board.
That’s exactly the problem these new grants are designed to address.
The Youth Jobs Grant provides £3,000 towards employing an 18 to 24 year old who has been unemployed for six months or more. It sits within a £1bn expansion of the Youth Guarantee scheme, and the government expects it to support around 60,000 young people into employment over three years.
The idea is straightforward: lower the upfront cost of hiring so that more businesses feel confident enough to give a young person a chance.
Alongside the Youth Jobs Grant, there’s a separate £2,000 incentive aimed at small employers who take on an apprentice aged 16 to 24.
Apprenticeships have seen a noticeable drop in take-up over recent years. Schools and colleges are now telling students that finding a placement is harder than it used to be. That means there’s a pool of keen, motivated young people actively looking for opportunities, with fewer employers competing to offer them one.
If you’ve ever considered developing your own talent rather than battling it out for experienced candidates, the £2,000 incentive makes the sums more workable. It’s worth a closer look, especially if your HR consultancy services in Edinburgh or your own internal team can support the onboarding process properly.
Youth unemployment is close to a five-year high. As of late 2025, roughly 957,000 young people aged 16 to 24 were not in education, employment or training.
At the same time, salaries for experienced workers keep climbing. Employer costs are rising. Competition for skilled candidates is fierce.
A grant like this gives you a realistic way to bring in resource without shouldering the full cost upfront. And with so many young people looking for work, you’re more likely to find someone who’s genuinely eager to learn and contribute.
The money is helpful. But it won’t count for much if your new hire walks out after eight weeks because their first few months were chaotic and unsupported.
Younger workers, particularly those who’ve been out of work for a while, often need more structure and clearer guidance than someone with years of experience. That’s not a criticism of them. It’s just the reality of bringing in someone who’s still building their confidence in a workplace setting.
Before you apply for the grant, it’s worth asking yourself a few honest questions:
If any of those feel a bit shaky, it’s better to sort them out now rather than after someone has started.
From January 2027, unfair dismissal rights will apply from six months into employment rather than the current two-year qualifying period. That’s a significant shift.
It means every hire needs to be set up properly from the very beginning. You won’t have the same runway to figure things out informally. Having a solid onboarding plan and a clear probation process isn’t just good practice anymore. It’s becoming essential.
The grant takes care of the financial risk. Good onboarding takes care of everything else.
If the cost of recruiting experienced workers continues to rise, and there’s every indication it will, you may need to rethink how you build your team over time.
Apprenticeships, graduate programmes, adult apprenticeships, and supported hiring schemes are all routes that more small businesses are starting to explore. They can be more cost-effective than competing for the same experienced candidates that every other employer is chasing.
The grants available right now are a good starting point. But the broader question of how you develop a sustainable approach to bringing people into your business is one that deserves some proper thought.
If you’re interested in the Youth Jobs Grant or the apprenticeship incentive but you’re not sure whether your onboarding and management processes are ready, we’d love to help you get those right before your new person starts.
We can talk through what kind of role would suit your business, how to structure the early weeks and months, and how to make sure you’re meeting your obligations under the changing employment rules.
As outsourced HR consultants in Edinburgh and Glasgow, we work with small businesses on exactly this kind of thing. It doesn’t need to be complicated, and getting it right from the start makes all the difference.
Get in touch and let’s have a conversation about how to make this work for you and your business.
