Help with searching
This portal has been designed to help you search for funding that will support you while you learn.
If this is your first time using this portal or if you want to know the best way to find information that meets your learning needs, follow our guide to making the most of your funding search.
This portal contains information on over 2,500 funding schemes, so to help you find the right funding for your needs we recommend that you answer as many questions about yourself as possible.The questions have been designed to help make sure that you find funding that is going to match your needs. The information you provide is only going to be used to help you find suitable funding and none of the information will be used for any other reasons.Click on the links below to find more out about how each search question works:
What kind of qualification are you interested in?
To find funding that will support the course that you want to take, you need to tell us about the qualification level that you hope to achieve.
You can enter the general level of qualification from the ‘Qualification level’ drop-down box. For example, if you are on a basic skills course in Literacy, select 'Basic skills' from the list.
Subject OR Occupation?
You can search for funding in two ways: either by the subject that you are interested in studying or the kind of job or occupational area that you are interested in training for.
Select either the job or subject that you are interested in training for from the drop-down list of options.
For example, if you are interested in developing a career in the retail sector and you want to find out what funding is available to help you in your career, select 'Retail Sales and Customer Service' from the list of job types.
If you are learning for pleasure or don’t know what kind of job you are interested then select a subject from the list of options.
For example, if you are interested in studying History, select the 'Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences' option from the list of subjects.
Select your funding purpose
Some funders will only provide you with money if you are using it to finance a particular activity, for example to pay your childcare costs.
Select the reason that you are looking for funding (what you intend to spend the money on) from the list of options.
For example, if you are looking for money to purchase a computer to help your studies, select 'Books and equipment' from the list of purposes.
Employment status
This question is asking about your current employment status.
Some funding is only available to you if you are in work and some funding is aimed at unemployed people. To find funding that matches your circumstances, select from the list of options which status best matches your employment status.
If you do not wish to disclose this information, then you don’t have to make a selection.
Keyword search
The keyword search works in the same way as other search engine websites that you might have used before and will help you to narrow down your search results.
Use the keyword search if you know the name of funding scheme or you are interested in funding that relates to a specific word or phrase. For example, enter a keyword such as ‘mechanic’ if you are looking for funding that will help you train to become a mechanic.
To start your keyword search type in the term or terms you wish to search on.
You then need to select the type of search you want to run with these keywords by selecting from the options. There are a number of different keyword search that you can choose to run:
- If you want to run a broad keyword search, select All text – this will look for your keyword or phrase in all of the funding information.
- If you know the name of a funding scheme that you want to find then select Fund name – this will bring back all funds that have that keyword or phrase in the title.
- All words – If you search on all words, your results will return funds that contain all of the words you entered. So if you typed in 'career development', the results will contain the words 'career' AND 'development'.
- Any words – If you search on any words, your results will return schemes that contain any of the words you entered. So if you type in 'career development', the results will include schemes that contain the words 'career', and also schemes that contain the word 'development' – not only those schemes that mention them both.
- Exact phrase – If you search on exact phrase only those schemes that contain the words in the exact order you typed them will appear. For example, if you type in 'Career Development Loans' and select Exact phrase you will search for a fund with this name only.
Once you have entered the keywords you want to search on click on the Search button at the bottom of the search form and your results will be listed on a separate page. To view any scheme you will need to click on the name of that scheme and you will be taken to another page where the full details of that scheme are displayed.