Pathways to Work: £60M Fund Opens to Businesses and Innovators This September
£60M Fund Opens to Businesses and Innovators This September
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has launched a new £60 million Pathways to Work Innovation Fund. The initiative is a direct call to action for businesses, charities, and tech innovators across the UK to develop creative, new ways to support disabled people and individuals with long-term health conditions into fulfilling careers.
With economic inactivity due to ill-health currently costing the UK economy an estimated £212 billion a year, the government is looking to collaborative innovation to help break down the barriers keeping talent out of the workforce.
Here is what the funding announcement means for employers, innovators, and the wider business community.
What is the Pathways to Work Innovation Fund?
The £60 million fund is part of a broader £3.5 billion employment support package designed to modernise the welfare system and make workplaces more accessible. Rather than relying on traditional methods, this specific fund focuses entirely on testing genuinely new approaches.
Applications will open in September 2026, inviting bids from the private, voluntary, and public sectors.
To ensure the funding goes where it will make the biggest difference, an expert panel has been appointed to design the fund and shortlist the best ideas. The panel includes Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, alongside leading figures from the Business Disability Forum, Mencap, and the digital sector, ensuring the lived experiences of disabled people sit at the heart of the project.
A Focus on Tech and Personalised Support
The launch coincides with a push from the DWP to embrace cutting-edge technologies, including AI and machine learning, to create more efficient employment services and career-matching tools.
For the technology and digital sectors, this represents a significant opportunity. The government is actively looking to back bold, scalable ideas, ranging from assistive workplace technologies to innovative digital training platforms, that allow employers to tap into a wider, more diverse pool of talent.
Alongside digital innovation, the wider package focuses heavily on localised, face-to-face support. This includes intensive, one-to-one help from specialist advisors working directly within communities to meet people exactly where they are.
Wider Welfare Reforms
The innovation fund sits alongside several broader shifting policies aimed at rebalancing employment support, including:
The Right to Try Work Guarantee: A new measure allowing individuals to try entering the workforce without the immediate fear of losing their health-related benefits if a role does not work out.
Universal Credit Adjustments: Reforming system structures to remove historical disincentives that inadvertently penalised individuals for taking on work.
System Fairer Initiatives: Ongoing reviews to ensure Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and youth employment support structures are fit for the future.
How to Get Involved
The formal bidding window opens this September. Full application criteria and guidance on how to submit a proposal will be published by the government in the coming weeks, and once it’s available, we’ll add it here.
For businesses and innovators looking to lead on workplace inclusivity, now is the time to start forming partnerships, refining concepts, and preparing to pitch ideas that could fundamentally reshape the UK workforce.
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