Most small businesses want to invest in young people, but when margins are tight, every hire has to work.
Earlier this year, I travelled across the country meeting more than 150 leaders of small and medium-sized businesses. The message was loud and clear: businesses can see the value of bringing young people into their organisations, but many are trying to balance that ambition against rising costs, limited management capacity and the day-to-day pressures of running a business.
For many small businesses, hiring someone at the start of their career can feel like a significant leap. Not because businesses doubt the potential of young people, but because small firms have far less room for recruitment decisions not to work out.
That is why the government’s new apprenticeship incentives have the potential to be a genuine gamechanger for small businesses.
For the first time in a while, the financial support starts to look meaningful enough to genuinely shift the risk calculation for smaller employers.
The package includes:
- £2,000 Foundation Apprenticeship incentives
- £2,000 hiring grants for smaller non-levy employers, those organisations with annual payrolls below £3m
- A £3,000 Youth Jobs Grant
- Fully funded training costs for under-25s from August 2026
In some cases, businesses could receive up to £8,000 per apprentice.
For many business owners, that suddenly changes the economics of investing in someone young.
But money alone will not determine whether this succeeds.
The businesses that get this right are not simply going to hire young people because incentives exist. They will do it because they increasingly see talent development as part of their long-term growth strategy.
Younger recruits often bring adaptability, digital confidence and a willingness to embrace new ways of working into businesses that are trying to modernise and grow. At a time when many firms are exploring how AI can improve productivity and performance, those capabilities can help businesses adopt technology faster and build a more agile workforce.
Small businesses collectively have the potential to create huge numbers of opportunities for young people across the country. And for many business leaders, this is no longer simply about filling vacancies. It is about building the workforce they will need to grow, adopt new technology and remain competitive in the years ahead.
Reducing some of the financial pressure could be enough to make more employers look again at the value young people can bring to their organisations.
If more small businesses decide the time is right to invest in young people, the result will not just be more apprenticeships. It will be more businesses building the workforce they need for the future.
