How Much Will Innovate UK Actually Fund? Intervention Rates Explained

Innovate UK doesn't fund a fixed percentage of any project. What you're actually offered depends on your company's size and which category your work falls into, and it can range from 25% to 70% of eligible costs before you even get to the rest of your budget. Get this wrong and you'll either under-cost your bid or discover, after the offer letter arrives, that you need to find far more match funding than you planned.

Why "up to 70%" isn't the whole story

You'll see "up to 70% funding" quoted everywhere Innovate UK funding is discussed, and it's true, but only for a specific combination: a micro or small organisation doing feasibility or industrial research work. Move up a size band, or move your project closer to market, and the rate falls. Innovate UK's guidance for programmes such as the Energy Catalyst and Future Flight programmes sets out the same tiered structure, and it's the structure UKRI uses across most of its grant competitions, not just those two.

The number that matters for your budget isn't the headline rate, it's the rate for your specific size band and project category. The rest of the cost has to come from somewhere else: your own cash, a co-funder, or in a collaborative bid, another partner picking up a larger share.

The three project categories that set your rate

Innovate UK classifies project work into categories borrowed from the UK's subsidy control framework, and each carries its own ceiling:

• Feasibility study: early-stage work testing whether an idea is technically and commercially viable, before you've committed to building it.
• Industrial research: planned research and critical investigation aimed at new knowledge or techniques, typically well short of a market-ready product.
• Experimental development: work that's nearer to market, combining existing knowledge to produce a demonstrable prototype or process, closer to something you could commercialise.

Feasibility studies and industrial research sit in the same, higher-funded tier. Experimental development sits in a lower tier, because it's assumed you're closer to a return and the state should be putting in less of the risk capital. A single project can span more than one category, in which case Innovate UK apportions costs and rates accordingly, so a bid that runs from feasibility through to a working prototype won't be funded at one flat rate throughout.

SME versus large company: the rate table

Company size is the other axis. Innovate UK uses the standard UK/EU definitions: broadly, a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) is a business with fewer than 250 employees and either turnover under €50 million or a balance sheet under €43 million; "micro" and "small" are narrower bands within that. Any organisation outside those thresholds counts as large. Here's the rate table as published in current UKRI programme guidance, current as of 25 August 2026:

Research organisations undertaking non-economic activity sit outside this table entirely: academic institutions are typically funded at 80% of full economic costs, and other research organisations at up to 100% of eligible costs, according to UKRI's Innovate UK funding rules. If your consortium includes a university partner, don't apply the business rate table to their costs.

The rate is always "up to". A competition's own scope document can set a lower cap than the standard table, and some capital cost items are funded at different rates again (up to 80% in some programmes). Always check the specific competition brief before you build a number into your budget, rather than assuming the general table applies unchanged.

Where the caps come from: subsidy control

These aren't arbitrary generosity limits. They exist because Innovate UK grants are a public subsidy, and since Brexit, subsidies to UK businesses are governed by the Subsidy Control Act 2022 rather than EU state aid rules. Most Innovate UK grants are given as Minimal Financial Assistance (MFA), a subsidy control category that comes with its own ceiling: £315,000 per organisation over any rolling three financial year period, which includes any support your organisation has already received under the equivalent EU de minimis regulation (capped at €300,000) over the same window, per UKRI's funding rules guidance.

That cap is per organisation, not per project. If you've had two smaller Innovate UK awards in the past two years and you're now bidding for a third, the intervention rate table tells you what percentage you could get, but the MFA ceiling can still cap the actual amount below what the rate implies. This is a genuine trap for companies that apply to multiple competitions in succession without tracking their running total.

Building your match funding budget without getting caught out

Once you know your category and size band, work backwards from the rate rather than forwards from what you'd like to spend:

• Confirm your size band first. A company that's grown since its last accounts filing might have moved from small to medium without realising, which changes the rate by ten points.
• Cost the project by category, not as one lump. If your project moves from feasibility into experimental development partway through, split the budget so each phase is costed against its own rate.
• Check your MFA balance before you apply. Add up what your organisation has already received under MFA or de minimis in the past three years, and confirm headroom remains.
• Read the competition's own scope document for its stated rate, and don't assume the standard table applies unmodified. See our Farming Innovation Programme feasibility guide for what a real scope document's cost rules look like in practice.
• Plan your match funding source early. If you're a small company at a 70% rate, you still need to find the remaining 30% from cash reserves, a co-funder or a partner in a collaborative bid, and assessors will want to see that funding is credible, not aspirational.

Common mistakes we see

The most frequent error is applicants quoting the 70% headline rate regardless of their actual size band or project stage, then having their costed budget queried or their offer come in lower than expected. The second is treating the rate as fixed across a whole project when it actually spans two categories. The third is not checking eligibility and readiness before spending time on the budget at all: our guide on what counts as eligible Innovate UK funding is worth reading alongside this one, since eligibility and intervention rate are separate questions that both need answering before you commit weeks to an application.

None of this replaces reading the actual competition brief. Rates, eligible costs and category definitions are set per competition and do move between funding rounds, so treat this article as the framework and the brief as the final word.

How GrantHero helps you build a realistic budget

Getting the intervention rate right matters before you write a single answer, because it decides whether the project is affordable at all once match funding is accounted for. GrantHero's Discovery tier flags which live competitions your company is actually eligible for and at what rate, so you're not costing a bid against the wrong tier. When you're ready to apply, our paid plans pair the platform with an experienced grant expert who reviews your costs and narrative together, rather than treating the budget as an afterthought to the writing. We're on your side of the table: if the numbers don't stack up for your project, we'll say so before you spend the time, not after.