Leicester Jobs Fund 2025 - Qualifying Criteria
Frequently Asked Questions -
1. What is the Leicester Jobs Fund?
The Leicester Jobs Fund (LJF) is designed to encourage employers to create new jobs or apprenticeships for unemployed people by offering a financial incentive of up to £5,000 to employers to take on new employees. It is run by Leicester City Council and administered through the Leicester Employment Hub.
2. Which Companies are eligible?
• Employers must be based in a Leicester or Leicestershire.
• Must be registered with Companies House, the Charities Commission, or be a public sector body.
• Must have the necessary Public and Employee Liability insurance in place.
• Must attend a recruitment day to interview candidates on either 13 or 15 August 2025.
• Must be willing to make reasonable adjustments based on candidate needs.
• Must comply with funding measures as specified within the UK’s new subsidy control regime, as descried at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/subsidy-control-regime
3. Which jobs are eligible?
• Must be additional, new jobs.
• Must be entry level – i.e. previous experience/qualifications (excluding Level 1 Maths and English) should not be essential and any support/training will be provided by the employer.
• All positions must pay at least £12.21 per hour.
• Must be for a minimum of 6 months (12 months for apprenticeships).
• Must have enough staff to support the job created.
• Must be at least 15 hours per week.
• Must be accessible via public transport from Leicester city.
• Must not currently have any jobs at risk (over the next 6 months)
• Must be filled by a candidate(s) who meets the ‘Eligible Candidates’ criteria below
4. Eligible candidates
All candidates will be vetted by Leicester Employment Hub.
Candidates must be aged 18+ years, be a Leicester city resident, have the right to live and work in the UK, have entitlement to public funds, be unemployed AND be from at least one of the following:
• Economically inactive or unemployed: Person has not worked for around 6 months.
• An offender (someone who is serving a community service) or ex-offender (someone who has completed a custodial or community sentence).
• A carer.
• An ex-carer.
• A homeless person.
• A former member of His Majesty’s (HM) Armed Forces (AF), a member of HM AF reserves, or a partner of current or former Armed Forces personnel.
• A person for whom a drug or alcohol dependency, including a history of dependency, presents a significant barrier to employment.
• Care experienced young person or a care leaver
• A refugee, a resettled Afghan.
• A person on the Ukrainian scheme.
• A victim/survivor of domestic abuse.
• Young people identified as being involved or at risk of being involved in serious violence.
• A victim of modern slavery.
5.What is the level of grant?
• £5,000 for jobs which are 30 hours or more per week.
• £2,500 for jobs which are 15 – 29 hours per week.
• The grant will be paid in two stages – 50% at 3 months and 50% at 6 months.
• Leicester Employment Hub will advise on other potential additional funding including £1,000 per candidate from our Supported Employment scheme, as well as apprenticeship grants.
6. What if an employee leaves during the grant period?
• Employees who leave or prove unsatisfactory may be replaced by approved recruits following agreement by the Leicester Employment Hub team.
7. What is the closing date?
• The initial closing date is midnight on 13 July. The total funds available are limited; therefore, the scheme will operate until its resources are fully committed.
8. How many grants can an employer receive?
• Grants are capped at five, 30 + hour posts (or ten, 15 – 29 hour posts) per employer. Each employer can only recruit for a maximum of two different job roles, eg Admin Assistant and Cleaner.
9. Which checks are made after the grant is approved?
• Employers will be required to produce proof of payment of wages at 3 months and 6 months.
10. Will the information provided be used for any other purpose?
• The Council reserves the right to report the number of jobs applied for, the number of jobs supported, and the amount of grant awarded and paid to each recipient company to relevant City Council Committees, the full Council and in any publicity about the Leicester Jobs Fund. This information may also be subject to freedom of information requests.
11. Data Protection
The Leicester Employment Hub is a business support and a skills development project covering the Leicester City area. The project is funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) administered by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). The Leicester Employment Hub will process personal data. We may also share this data amongst the partnership where applicable and with other support providers where express permission has been given. It will not be used for any other purpose. We may contact you for further information regarding the interaction, and with details of other opportunities available through the project.
The Leicester Employment Hub project has contractual obligations to collect the data included within this form to record outputs and outcomes, undertake a project evaluation and so that DLUHC can monitor and evaluate the UKSPF programme. The Lead Authority, Leicester City Council, in its role as Funding Manager on behalf of DLUHC, can request to see and check the information but will fully anonymise any personal data prior to delivering any required aggregated data sets to DLUHC and will not transfer any personal data to DLUHC.
For the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), in terms of the information processed, the following parties are Data Controllers:
DLUHC – who determines the purposes and criteria for processing.
The Lead Authority, Leicester City Council– who passes on that requirement to the project. Paper copies and electronic data will be stored for no longer than is necessary.
The Leicester Employment Hub who processes the information.
See the Privacy Notice on the Leicester City Council website www.leicester.gov.uk for more information.
By checking the consent box and signing this form, you are providing your permission for us to process your data for the purposes below.