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Business Productivity and Digitisation Grant Scheme

The current round of the Business Productivity and Digitisation Grant Scheme is now fully committed and any new enquiries will be placed on a waiting list. Please contact us with your details and we will contact you if further funding is allocated.

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund Business Productivity and Digitisation Grant Scheme supports small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in South Yorkshire to grow, become more productive and measure that improvement.

Through the scheme, you’ll get expert support to:

  • review what’s driving your business and what’s holding you back
  • develop ways to increase your productivity, and apply for funding to make them happen
  • measure your productivity to understand how well your changes have worked

Over 250 Sheffield businesses have already had a grant through similar projects and if you have a project in mind, don't delay in getting in touch as applications will be approved on a first come, first served basis.

This project is funded by the GOV.UK: Shared Prosperity Fund.

About the support included

Each Council in South Yorkshire runs the scheme for their own area through their business support team. If your business is based in Sheffield, you’ll work with our Business Advisors. They’ll support you to:

  • understand the things that are holding your productivity back, and find ways to change them
  • apply for your grant
  • measure how well your changes have worked and plan your next steps

About the grants

As part of the programme, businesses can apply for a grant to help them pay for changes to make their business more productive. This could mean saving time, space, energy or materials.

There are two types of grants to apply for: 

  • Productivity
  • Digital Innovation

At the moment, businesses can apply for either one or the other. This may change later if there is enough funding left for businesses to apply for both, but this is not guaranteed.

For both grants, the business must be able to match the grant with its own finance or another source of funding.

With a Digital Innovation Grant:

  • you can apply for a grant of between £2,500 and £5,000
  • this grant can pay for half of your project; your business will need to fund the other half

With a Productivity Grant:

  • you can apply for a grant of between £2,500 and £25,000 
  • your business must be able to pay at least the same amount as your grant towards your project (in total, your project cannot cost more than £125,000)

Timeframes to be aware of

All projects must be able to deliver within the timeframes below to ensure grants can be paid before the scheme closes:

  • draft applications must be submitted within 2 weeks of engaging with a Productivity Advisor
  • projects must commence delivery before the end of November 2024
  • projects must have completed with supplier invoices paid and claims submitted before the end of January 2025

For productivity grants between £12,500 and £25,000, projects must meet additional conditions to guarantee deliverability.

Businesses must have been trading for more than 12 months to apply for grants over £5,000. Grants are available towards both revenue, such as specialist business support, or capital investment, such as machinery, equipment and the fit-out of premises.

When you will receive the grant

The grant is paid once you have paid your project costs and given us valid proof of that payment. Your business must be able to pay project costs in full before you receive the 50% grant contribution, whether using your own funds, finance from a bank or other commercial finance.

Case studies
Triple Point Brewery

Triple Point launched in March 2019 and quickly grew from an on-site bar to a trade supplier. By 2022, despite slow growth during lockdown, the brewery was growing faster than their space would allow.

The team applied for a Business Productivity Grant to expand their brewing hall into the warehouse next door. This made further productivity-boosting projects possible. An extra fermentation vessel has already been installed, adding 16% to brewing capacity and creating an extra full-time job. The team plans to add a further two vessels and a new chiller unit. In future, the new space will also make it possible for the team to explore the automatic packaging of beer into kegs and cans.

Triple Point Managing Director, Mike Brook, commented, “The need for new drains, piping and hygienic flooring was a real barrier to us growing Triple Point and was very difficult for us to fund. The productivity grant made this possible and we are really excited about the new opportunities this has opened up.”

JAM Designers

Jonny and Matt met while designing for a global street furniture company. They now work with factories around the world on projects from electric bikes to dog toys and fishing equipment to exhibition stands.

Their Business Productivity Grant enabled them to purchase a state-of-the-art 3D printer. Being able to print themselves has allowed them to streamline their development process, save time and costs.

Not only has this made the business more profitable; the JAM team is passing on time and cost savings to their clients, so they can get products on the market faster.

“Comparing previous projects with new projects, we can easily see the time saved,” says Matt Bowman.

“We have seen cost savings for our clients and the service we can offer has been improved. We are able to move concepts forward faster, speeding up the critical decisions that keep the project moving. We can explore and model ideas more thoroughly, helping us create better products for our clients.

“This was the first grant that we had ever applied for, so having help from Business Sheffield was incredibly helpful. Rachel talked us through the entire process and helped us understand what we could and couldn’t apply for. Having her guidance was key to us getting the grant. Since then, we have had regular catch ups to see how things have been progressing.”

Eligibility

In order for your business to be able to qualify for support, all of the statements below must be true. You should read these together with the full terms and conditions, which will be made available to you when you apply.

  • you can meet the required timescales for project completion
  • your business is a small to medium sized enterprise (SME) 
  • you have business premises in Sheffield (if you are not the business rates payer, you must be able to provide a lease or license)
  • your business is not home-based
  • your business is able to fund at least half of your project
  • you can show that your project is financially viable and that grant support is needed to make it happen
  • your business has received less than £315,000 of state aid/subsidy (minus the grant amount applied for) over the current and previous two consecutive fiscal years (if you’re not sure about this, get in touch with us)
If you’ve had a Productivity or Digital Innovation Grant before

We have set aside a certain amount of grant money for businesses who’ve had a Business Productivity or Digital Innovation grant before. This is to make sure we can go on supporting businesses that have the potential to become even more productive, while using most of the money to help businesses that haven’t had the support before.

If you have had one of these grants before, you’ll need to show that you’ve achieved the outcomes you planned for your first project and be applying for a new project to achieve a separate set of outcomes.

How to apply

If you're a Sheffield SME and are interested in applying, the first step is to contact our friendly Advisor team. They’ll talk you through all this information, discuss your idea and support you with every step of the process.

You can get in touch with us to discuss your project and whether you’re eligible. If you need to send attachments, then email us at businesssheffield@sheffield.gov.uk.

For businesses based elsewhere in South Yorkshire

If you are based in Barnsley, contact Enterprising Barnsley on 01226 773003 or email investment@barnsley.gov.uk.

If you are based in Doncaster, contact Business Doncaster on 01302 735555 or email sharon.finch@doncaster.gov.uk.

If you are based in Rotherham, contact Rotherham Investment and Development Office on 01709 331133 or email info@rido.org.uk.

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