NextGen Fund (Round 14)

Grants of up to GBP 3,000 for one young creative to invest in their own work. The money goes to a named individual, not an organisation or a band. You can collaborate with other people on whatever you make, but the point of the grant has to be your own artistic development, and Youth Music asks applicants to think carefully about who puts their name to the application when several people are involved.

It is aimed at people aged 18 to 25, or 18 to 30 if you identify as d/Deaf, Disabled or neurodivergent, who are early in their careers, have not received funding before, and face real barriers to moving forward. Music-adjacent creatives count, so this is not only for performers.

Round 14 is open from 28 August to 25 September 2026 at 5pm, with decisions in January 2027, so plan for roughly a four-month wait. Applications are submitted through the grants portal, which now requires an account; you have to use the same login email each time to get back into a saved draft. Guidance and a copy of the form questions are published as PDF and Word documents so you can write offline first, which the fund recommends. The detailed criteria sit in that guidance rather than on the web page.

Personal access costs can be claimed on top of the GBP 3,000 maximum, and a separate Application Access Fund helps with the cost of applying. One-to-one calls with the grants team can be booked while the round is open. Youth Music does not forbid using AI to draft, but warns that AI answers tend to read alike and that this counts against you.