UK Digital Intervention Grant Funding for Individuals and Small Businesses (UK DIGIS)

Providing Grant to Help Individuals, Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses in the United Kingdom Hire Virtual Support, Get Online, Grow the UK Economy and Achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The United Kingdom is home to over 5.7 million private sector businesses, and small and medium-sized enterprises make up almost the entire business population.

Around 26% of SME employers report struggling specifically to recruit staff with the digital skills they need, and while the share of SME employers using technology or web-based tools to sell to customers or manage their business has grown to 69%, a significant minority still have no meaningful digital presence at all.

Cost remains the single biggest barrier as 28% of UK businesses say they lack the budget for necessary digital tools, and close to a fifth of SMEs say what would help most is direct grant or subsidy support to ease the cost of digitalisation.

Left unaddressed, this gap has a real economic cost, with the UK’s wider digital skills shortfall estimated to hold back tens of billions of pounds in potential output every year.

The United Kingdom Digital Intervention Grant Funding for Individuals and Small Businesses, known as UK DIGIS, is an initiative of PASDO created to help close this gap.

UK DIGIS subsidises part of the cost of hiring virtual support and accessing digital services for various categories of beneficiaries, including individuals who want to start a business or testing a new business idea while still in full-time employment, existing small businesses that may not yet be digitally established or able to afford dedicated support on their own, and other types of beneficiaries who are able to demonstrate that receiving the UK DIGIS support can contribute to increased productivity, economic growth or any other factor that can ultimately help in achieving the UN Sustainable Development goals.

Through the UK DIGIS Grant, eligible applicants receive support toward part of the cost of a virtual support or digital service. The grant covers between 10% and 40% of the eligible cost, depending on various factors, including the proposed activity and the funding available.

UK DIGIS and Sustainable Development

Sustainable development sits at the centre of PASDO’s work, and the UK DIGIS grant is designed to contribute to several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are directly relevant to the UK’s economic landscape today.

SDG 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth

This is a primary goal behind the UK DIGIS grant. By helping individuals turn business ideas into functioning ventures, and helping existing small businesses professionalise and expand their operations, UK DIGIS contributes directly to job creation, productivity and inclusive economic growth across the UK. A business that can afford to hire a virtual assistant or launch a proper website is a business better placed to take on customers, create work for others and contribute to the wider economy.

SDG 9, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Access to digital tools and services, from websites to virtual staffing platforms, is a form of digital infrastructure that small businesses increasingly need in order to compete. By subsidising access to this infrastructure, UK DIGIS helps small UK businesses adopt the technology and working practices that support innovation and long-term resilience.

SDG 1, No Poverty

By helping individuals, including those testing a business idea alongside full-time employment, access the support needed to get a venture off the ground, UK DIGIS contributes to broadening pathways to income generation, particularly for people who may not otherwise have the resources to hire support on their own. UK DIGIS also connects to other goals in various ways.

What the UK DIGIS Grant Supports

The UK DIGIS Grant supports applicants in accessing digital interventions that can:

help increase productivity,
contribute to social impact,
support economic growth in the United Kingdom, and
help in achieving one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Most applications usually fall within common categories.

The following information, drawn from the information provided by the service providers that had applied to, been carefully screened and approved as implementing partners under the UK DIGIS programme, explains the different types of the common category of services, how the services may benefit you, and price ranges of the services.

Virtual Staffing

Virtual staffing is one of the most common uses of the UK DIGIS Grant.

In the UK, virtual staffing support is generally sold in monthly on-demand packages rather than as a full-time hire, and typically falls into a few broad categories:

General or administrative support

This covers structured, task-based work such as inbox and diary management, data entry, document preparation, filing, scheduling and general correspondence. This is usually the starting point for most small businesses and individuals new to using virtual support.

Personal assistant (PA) support

This covers a broader remit than general admin, including closer day-to-day coordination with a specific individual, such as diary and inbox management, meeting preparation, travel booking, client follow-ups and event planning.

Executive assistant (EA) support

This is a more senior level of support, typically for founders or business leaders juggling complex schedules, and can include strategic calendar management, board or meeting preparation, high-level correspondence and project coordination.

Typical monthly pricing for general admin, PA and EA-type virtual staffing, based on the rates shared by our approved partners providers, is:

10 hours per month: £300 to £400
20 hours per month: £550 to £800
40 hours per month: £1,100 to £1,600
60 hours per month: £1,500 to £2,400

Social media management support

This covers hands-on, ongoing social media tasks such as making or scheduling posts, basic content creation and responding to comments and messages, and is priced differently from general admin support, as set out below.

Social media management support in the UK, based on the packages offered by our approved partner providers, tends to be priced as a monthly package rather than by hours, and generally falls into three broad levels, distinguished mainly by how many platforms are covered, how often you post, and how much content is created for you rather than supplied by you:

Basic social media support, typically £250 to £500 a month. Usually covers 1 to 2 platforms, around 3 posts a week, and uses images or content you supply yourself or simple stock imagery. Suited to a business that mainly wants a consistent, active presence online.
Standard social media support, typically £500 to £1,200 a month. Usually covers 2 to 3 platforms, around 5 posts a week, custom-made graphics, basic community management, meaning replying to comments and messages within a day or two, and a monthly performance report.
Full social media management, typically £1,500 to £3,000 a month. Usually covers more platforms, daily posting including formats like Stories and Reels, custom content creation including video, active same-day community management, and detailed monthly analytics and strategy input.

Digital Marketing (Paid Advertising)

The UK DIGIS grant provides support towards the cost of hiring someone to run paid adverts for your business on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok and Google.

In plain terms, this means paying a specialist to set up and manage adverts that are shown to people who are likely to be interested in your business, rather than relying only on people finding you naturally. The person’s job usually includes deciding who the adverts should be shown to, designing the advert itself, and adjusting the campaign over time based on what is and isn’t working.

It’s worth noting that the cost of managing your adverts is separate from your actual advertising budget, which is the amount you pay directly to the platform (for example, Facebook or Google) for your adverts to be shown, and is on top of any management cost. What UK DIGIS supports is the cost of hiring someone to handle the paid adverts and not the cost paid to the platforms.

Typical UK pricing, for the management side of this service (not including your advertising budget) is approximately £500 to £1,500 a month for adverts on a single platform, rising to £1,500 to £3,000 a month for campaigns run across multiple platforms at once. As with the figures above, this is a general guide, not a fixed price.

Website Design and Development

The UK DIGIS grant provides support towards the cost of having a website built, giving you or your business a proper online presence. This includes both a standard informational website and an online shop, for example built on WordPress with WooCommerce, for businesses that want to sell products directly online.

Grant support for a website typically covers both the build itself and the first six months of maintenance afterwards.

Google Business Profile Setup and Maintenance

The UK DIGIS grant provides support towards the cost of setting up a Google Business Profile and maintaining it for six months, giving you reasonable time to establish some online presence and begin to see some growth (or see signs of it).

Search Engine Optimisation

This is commonly known as SEO, and is something done to help your website appear higher up when people search on Google for a business or service like yours, without paying Google for adverts.

A website built by a competent provider should already include basic SEO foundations as standard, such as a clear structure and mobile-friendly design, but dedicated SEO support goes further than this foundation. It typically involves ongoing work such as researching the words and phrases your customers search for (which you may not reliably know until after your website has existed for several months, has been properly understood by search engines and has some tracking data that you or an SEO specialist can analyse and use), creating content around them, and steadily improving your visibility over time.

Typical pricing for ongoing SEO support is approximately £300 to £500 a month for a single local business focus, rising to £500 to £1,500 a month for broader or more competitive SEO work.

You can be supported under UK DIGIS grant to hire a specialist to handle the SEO work on your website for a period of six months, giving you enough time to begin to reap its benefits (or begin to see strong signs of improvement).

Email marketing and newsletter setup

Email marketing and newsletter setup covers setting up the tools and templates needed to regularly email your customers with updates, offers or news.

This typically involves a one-off setup fee from around £150, plus an ongoing monthly subscription to an email platform, which usually starts at around £10 to £15 a month for a small contact list and increases as your list grows.

You can be supported under UK DIGIS grant to hire a specialist to handle the setup of email marketing and newsletter system and its maintenance for a period of 6 months.

Graphic design and branding

Graphic design and branding covers the entire work that goes into creating a professional logo and other visual branding materials for your business, which includes market research and strategy development to ensure your logo easily stands out in the market, conceptualisation and sketching, and versatility and practical testing, among others. Professional logo typically costs between £250 and £1,000, while a fuller branding package that also includes simple brand guidelines, such as your colours and fonts, typically costs between £1,500 and £5,000.

Other Digital Services

UK DIGIS also supports a range of other digital services that you, the applicant, can reasonably show is in line with the programme’s objectives.

UK DIGIS Grant Timeframe

UK DIGIS Grants are designed for support that can be arranged and delivered within specific durations.

One-off services such as a website build or Google Business Profile setup, must be capable of being set up and completed within one month of your grant being redeemed with an approved service provider.

For ongoing support such as virtual staffing, this means the engagement with your approved service provider must be completed within the approved duration.

How To Apply and Things To Note

To apply for the UK DIGIS grant, please follow the steps below and take note of the points.

Click the apply button at the end of this page to complete the DIGIS Grant application form that loads up.
When filling out the form, you will be required to supply non-sensitive personal information, such as your name, email address, phone number and physical address in the UK.
You will also need to state what digital service you are applying to get the grant for by selecting from a list of common service types with an “other” option for anything not listed, and state reason why you should be awarded a grant.
If you already know the ID of a PASDO-approved service provider for what you want, you can include it in your application. If you do not have one, you can still apply, and, if your application is approved, you will simply be matched with a general approved service provider under the UK DIGIS programme.
Applications are assessed against the programme’s eligibility requirements, available funding, and the relevance of the request. Being eligible to apply does not guarantee that a grant will be awarded.
You should expect to hear back within two working days to a maximum of three weeks of applying. If you have not heard back within this time, please consider your application unsuccessful on this occasion. Due to the high number of applications we receive, The UK DIGIS team may not be able to individually notify every unsuccessful applicant.
Applications are considered on a rolling basis.
If your application is approved, you will receive a notification specifying your grant percentage for the service you applied for, your approved service provider, a grant code to be used on the website of the approved service provider, an expiry date and any other relevant information.
You will need to accept the grant offer by redeeming your grant code with your approved service provider within two business days of approval. If it is not redeemed within this window, the grant code will expire and be reassigned to other applicants waiting in the queue, which indicates forfeiture of the grant offer.

How Much Can You Receive Under UK DIGIS, And Do You have to Pay Back?

The UK DIGIS Grant provides a maximum of 40% of the eligible cost of an approved virtual support or digital service.

The exact percentage may differ based on the type of service.
The following is the current percentages by type of service:

Virtual staffing: typically 20% to 40%
Website design and development (including six months of maintenance): typically 20% to 40%
Digital marketing: typically 15% to 25%
Social media management support: typically 20% to 40%
Google Business Profile setup and maintenance: typically 10% to 25%
Other digital services: assessed individually, within the overall 10% to 40% range

These are typical ranges, published as a guide, and the exact percentage awarded within a given range depends on the strength of your application, the funding available at the time, and PASDO’s discretion.

For example, if an approved service costs £1,000 and you receive a 30% grant, UK DIGIS would contribute £300, leaving you responsible for the remaining £700.

UK DIGIS grant is free and non-refundable. You never have to pay back, and you never have to pay any fee to apply.

Responsibilities of Beneficiaries of UK DIGIS Grant

Accepting a UK DIGIS grant comes with a few simple responsibilities. These help PASDO and its donors confirm that grants are reaching real people and businesses, and making a genuine difference.

Progress report

Beneficiaries agree to submit one short progress report after receiving the grant.
This is a brief update covering how the grant has been used, what it was used for, a couple of screenshots or photos where available, links to any public acknowledgement you made about the grant, and any challenges encountered.

Public acknowledgment

Beneficiaries are encouraged to acknowledge PASDO’s support publicly. Beneficiaries who choose to post about their grant on social media should set the post’s visibility to public rather than restricted to friends or followers, and include a link to that post in their progress report.

By submitting photos or a testimonial, beneficiaries grant PASDO a non-exclusive, royalty-free right to use that content, at any time and without expiry, along with their name and a description of their project, in PASDO’s own promotional materials, reports and fundraising communications. Content is handled in line with PASDO’s privacy policy.

No endorsement or affiliation

Receiving a UK DIGIS grant does not create a partnership, sponsorship, endorsement, employment relationship or business affiliation between the beneficiary and PASDO. Beneficiaries are not authorised to speak on PASDO’s behalf or use PASDO’s name or logo beyond the acknowledgment described above, and PASDO is not responsible for how a beneficiary subsequently uses, operates or represents the supported service beyond what was approved.

Compliance

Applicants must provide accurate information and use approved grant support for its intended purpose. A grant approval may be withdrawn if information provided is found to be inaccurate or materially different from what was presented in the application.

UK DIGIS Grant Timeline

1. Apply for a grant

You complete and submit the UK DIGIS Grant application form, including your details, what you are applying for, and the justification.

2. Approval decision

PASDO's UK DIGIS Grant team reviews your application and aims to respond within three weeks. If you have not heard back by then, please consider your application unsuccessful on this occasion.

3. Redeem your grant

Once approved, you typically have up to two days to redeem your grant code with your approved partner provider. A code that is not redeemed within this window expires and is reassigned to another applicant.

4. Complete your transaction

You and your partner provider must fully complete the transaction for the digital service within the specified duration.

5. Progress brief

Within the duration specified above, you write and send a short progress brief to PASDO to document your experience.

Application process PASDO review Your ongoing commitments