Help to Grow class attendees
Help to Grow Management is a Government funded programme set up to support SMEs to grow. Over 10,000 SME leaders have completed Help to Grow nationally and the university of Brighton have just had the 250th business leader complete the programme in a certificate awarding celebration.
SMEs account for 99.8% of the business population and employ three-fifths of the UK workforce, so helping them thrive has been highlighted as a national priority. The programme is delivering with 91% of those completing nationally saying Help to Grow had improved their leadership and management of their business and they would recommend the programme to another business leader.*
It’s a 12-week course delivered face to face and online and covers all areas needed to review your current business, find gaps and opportunities and produce a business growth plan with the knowledge and support of university experts and your own one to one mentor.
Programme director Adam Jones said “It is immensely satisfying seeing our 250th business leader compete Help to Grow with us and thank you to everyone that has made this possible. We understand how difficult it is for SMEs to survive locally and are so pleased to continue this support with 3 new cohorts of our Help to Grow programme starting in September and October 2025.”
To celebrate this milestone Help to Grow Brighton have been catching up with people who took the course over the last 3 years to find out the impact that the programme has had on their business and on themselves as business leaders.
One of these is Richard Worsfold at Branding Box, a brand and digital marketing agency graduated from the Crawley programme in 2024.
“Since the course, we have tripled our number of employees in less than a year. I realised I spend a lot of time on admin within the business, so I took on a Virtual Assistant, who helps me with that side of things, freeing up my time to work on developing the business.
We have increased our turnover and profits substantially. Help to Grow opens your eyes to what you can achieve in your business and gets you on the road to achieving it.”
You can join the cohort in Brighton in September or Crawley in October if you are a senior leader/decision maker in a business with 5-249 staff.
Find out more and sign up to the course Help to Grow or email helptogrow@brighton.ac.uk with any questions or to arrange to chat to a course leader to see if the course is for you.