Skills and professional development

This support is for professional UK musicians of all genres and disciplines, with a focus on independent music creators who are controlling one or more aspects of their career.

You can be a solo artist, composer, group member, songwriter, producer or a multidisciplinary artist.

To apply, you must:

• Deliver your supported activities within 12 months of accepting the grant. Please note, your activity should not start any earlier than three months from the submission of your application
• Be aged over 18
  
• Be in financial need without significant backing (i.e. not receiving significant financial backing from a label, publisher or private investor, and not having £16,000+ in savings)
  
• Have control over one or more aspects of your career (e.g. self-managing, self-releasing or self-producing)
  
• Already have an active career and be able to clearly demonstrate your work to date
  
• Have the right to live and work in the UK
• Currently be living in the UK
• Have a UK bank account

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If applying as a group:

• At least 50% of members must meet the criteria as above, including the lead applicant
  
• You must have been established and playing together regularly for at least one year
  

You can apply for up to £1,500 to take up opportunities that enhance your skills, career or musical practice.

This could be a conference to learn more about the industry, an online course to enhance your performance skills, growing new abilities or perhaps some time to work with a respected peer.

Examples of this include:

• Online or in-person courses, 1:1 coaching sessions, fees to attend virtual conferences, song writing academies and masterclasses.
• Short periods of training with a leading professional in your field to improve your creative practice and skills.
  

• Short periods of intensive learning or skills development exploring new technologies, in order to support and adapt your practice or performance in music.
• Short periods of mentoring support and advice ahead of an important career opportunity or transition

Here are the activities that we can’t currently support: 

• Activities that take place within 3‑months of a submitted application
• Activities that are not primarily focused on developing a career as a musician 
• Activities incurred as part of a promotional campaign (this includes PR, production of merchandise, creating music videos, manufacture and distribution etc) 
• Formal courses of study, training or research (e.g. undergraduate or postgraduate study). For information on how we can support this, please visit Support your Studies
• The continuation of regular one-to-one lessons
• Attendance as a performer at showcases already supported by funds like the International Showcase Fund (e.g. SXSW, CMJ, A3C, Womex, Reeperbahn, Folk Alliance International, Canadian Music Week) 
• Costs associated with entering competitions 

• Although we won’t exclude applications that are asking us to contribute to a wider project, this application shouldn’t be seen as a top-up fund for larger funding bids. (10% of your total budget or less would be considered as top-up funding)

• Purchase of musical equipment, production and composition software/​hardware, performance related technology

Yes. You can apply for this as part of a larger application of up to a total of £5,000.

The maximum amount for each type of support is as follows:

• Skills and professional development: £1,500
• Record and release or MOBO Help Musicians Fund: £3,000
• Touring & Live: £5,000

There is high demand for this support, and in 2022 the charity was able to support around one in five applications from the funds available. We do understand that this process can be challenging, and we are here to support you, but due to the volume of applications our guidance cannot guarantee a successful outcome.