Businesses, charities, technology companies, and public-sector organisations can compete for a share of £60m to test new ways of helping disabled people and people with health conditions enter, remain in, and progress through work.
The Pathways to Work Innovation Fund opened for bids on 28 September, with applications due by 26 October. The Department for Work and Pensions announced the programme more widely on 1 October as it sought additional proposals from employers and innovators.
Potential interventions include AI-assisted job matching, digital mental-health therapies, prosthetics, workplace technology, and new forms of personalised employment support.
Almost 800 organisations have already taken part in an initial engagement event around the programme, according to the department.
Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said: “We want the best ideas from business, charities and disabled people themselves, to help us transform employment support and make sure no talent is left behind.”
The fund is part of a wider £3.5bn programme of employment support for disabled people and people with health conditions. Government figures put the number of people out of work because of sickness at around 2.8 million.
The programme does not prescribe a single employment-service model. Private, voluntary, and public-sector organisations can develop proposals combining technology, health support, workplace practice, accessibility, or specialist employment services.
AI job-matching systems are one potential route. Such tools can compare an individual’s skills, preferences, support needs, and location against vacancies, although their usefulness depends on the quality of data and whether employers can make the adjustments required once someone enters work.
Digital therapies and accessibility technology address a different part of the problem, potentially supporting people whose health conditions make conventional employment services difficult to access.
Employment outcomes will ultimately determine whether those interventions are effective. Increased platform usage or numbers of referrals do not necessarily demonstrate that people have entered sustainable jobs, remained employed, or progressed in work.
The employer side is equally important. Recruitment technology cannot compensate for inaccessible workplaces, poor line management, inflexible job design, or a failure to make reasonable adjustments.
The fund sits alongside the government’s expansion of employment support for young disabled people and the wider Keep Britain Working programme.
Persistent skills shortages give companies a separate commercial incentive to improve retention. Experienced employees leaving the workforce because of health conditions can remove knowledge and capability that are costly to replace.
An expert panel including Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson will help assess proposals, with the department saying lived experience of disability will be represented in decisions over which interventions receive support.
The strongest projects will need to connect innovation with measurable employment outcomes and practical employer adoption. Applicants have until 26 October to define their intervention, assemble delivery partners, establish evidence requirements, and set out how results will be assessed.
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