Guidance

Post-16 National Insurance contributions (NICs) grant

Guidance for institutions delivering post-16 education on the National Insurance contributions (NICs) grant for financial year 2025 to 2026.

Applies to England

Documents

Details

This guidance is for: 

  • maintained school and academy sixth forms 
  • 16 to 19 academies 
  • 16 to 19 schools   
  • sixth-form colleges  
  • general further education colleges  
  • designated institutions (including the new designated institutions that form part of higher education provider group structures)  
  • local authorities

We are making approximately £155 million available in financial year 2025 to 2026 to support institutions with the increase to employers’ National Insurance contributions arising from their post-16 education from April 2025.

Additional funding for pre-16 provision will be allocated through the National Insurance contributions (NICs) grant.

Funding for high needs settings is being allocated via the core schools budget grant (CSBG) 2025 to 2026.

Methodology 

This document sets out the methodology for the post-16 NICs grant. This includes guidance on how we will allocate funding for financial year 2025 to 2026 for eligible institutions. There are 3 components to the post-16 NICs grant: 

  • 16 to 19  
  • non 16 to 19 funded students and apprentices (in eligible settings)
  • local authority centrally employed teachers (CETs) and centrally employed support staff 

Settings will only receive the components that apply to their situation. The components are based on the most current data DfE holds to calculate the share of the grant.  

Conditions of grant 

We have published the conditions of grant

Allocations and payment

We have published the allocations and we will pay the grant as a single payment in September 2025.

Updates to this page

Published 18 March 2025
Last updated 28 May 2025 show all updates
  1. We have amended section 5 of the methodology to confirm that the allocations have now been published.

  2. We have now published the conditions of grant for the 2025 to 2026 financial year. We have also published the allocations, we expect to pay the grant in September 2025.

  3. We have published the full methodology for the post-16 National Insurance contributions grant: April 2025 to March 2026. We have removed the attachment we published on 18 March 2025 called Post-16 National Insurance contributions (NICs) grant 2025 to 2026 because all this information is now either in the details section on the main page or in the full methodology.

  4. We have updated this page to clarify that the guidance applies to designated institutions, including the new designated institutions that form part of higher education provider group structures

  5. First published.

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