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CITB Skills and Training Fund
Advice for medium-sized construction businesses

Gear up for growth with up to £25,000 for training

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What this fund is for?

Keep developing your business with help from CITB’s Skills and Training Fund. We’re supporting medium-sized businesses with up to £25,000 to upskill your staff to face the future.​

The money can be used for training in leadership and management or construction areas that will meet the needs of your team. Ultimately, adopting new skills will enable you to optimise efficiencies and continue expanding your revenue, through a motivated team that’s prepared to tackle tomorrow.

Who can apply for funding?

You’ll be eligible to apply if:

  • You have between 100 and 250 directly-employed staff on your payroll
  • You are a CITB-registered employer and up to date with your Levy Returns
  • Any previous project paid for by the Fund has been signed off as complete

How much can you apply for?

You can apply for funding related to how many direct employees you have:

  • Employers with between 100 and 149 directly employed staff can receive up to £15,000
  • Employers with between 150 and 199 directly employed staff can receive up to £20,000
  • Employers with between 200 and 250 directly employed staff can receive up to £25,000.

How often can you apply? 

You can apply twice in 12 months but can only have 1 live project at a time.

Before you apply

Make sure you have read and understood these documents:

You should also ​discuss your application with your local CITB Adviser. They will be happy to assist and to ensure your application form has been completed correctly.

How to apply

  1. Download and complete the Skills and Training Fund application form (Excel, 378KB) to apply. 
  2. Complete all fields, saving the form regularly to prevent loss of data.
  3. Save and send the completed form to skills.training@citb.co.uk.

Make sure the training activity you specify takes place in the future and not in the past. We are unable to fund retrospective activity.

What happens next?

Assessing applications

The Skills and Training team will review all applications at the end of each submission window (typically at the end of each calendar month).

You should receive a decision from us by email around the 15th of the month after your application was submitted. For example, if you apply any time during the month of July you will have a decision from us around 15 August. We would appreciate it if you do not chase a response within this period and we will inform you of the outcome as soon as possible.

Application decisions

We will review and score all applications against the Skills and Training Fund criteria (as set out in the Guidance notes (PDF, 193KB)) and notify you of our decision.

Approved:

If your application meets the Skills and Training Fund criteria, it will be approved and processed for payment, and you will receive an email with a payment schedule.

Payments will be made on a quarterly basis, subject to sufficient evidence of training being completed at each payment milestone.

Declined:

Your application may be declined if:

  • Your application does not meet the Skills and Training Fund criteria
  • You have not submitted your most recent Levy return
  • You are behind on your Levy payments

We will advise you on why we have declined your application or will communicate this via your CITB Adviser. You can re-submit an improved application in future months.

Monitoring and completing training

After the funding payment has been approved you can start your training activity.

You will be paid quarterly, and you will need to submit evidence of the spend before further payment will be released.

It’s important you retain all invoices, to demonstrate that the training has taken place. As part of your funding agreement, you will receive a reminder e-mail requesting evidence of expenditure every quarter.

Your collated evidence should be sent to skills.training@citb.co.uk within 28 days of receiving the e-mail. If you are experiencing challenges with finalizing your training programme, contact us to request an extension.

We will also ask you to complete a survey to share your feedback with us.

Your contribution will help us to continually improve the Skills & Training Fund.

What happens if circumstances change?

If your business needs change, contact skills.training@citb.co.uk as soon as possible and we can discuss alternative arrangements with you. This could result in the money being returned or agreeing to a new training schedule.

Publicity and communications

We may wish to publish details of your project on our website once funding has been approved and ask to work with you to develop press releases, case studies or promotional videos relating to your project either during delivery, or upon completion.