DWP launches £60m innovation fund to back AI and digital employment support
Tim Coulthard
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has opened a £60 million innovation fund seeking new technologies and approaches to help disabled people and those with health conditions enter, remain and progress in employment.
The Pathways to Work Innovation Fund is inviting bids from businesses, charities and public sector organisations, with potential projects including AI-powered job matching, digital mental health therapies, accessible training platforms and new assistive technologies. Applications close on 26 October.
The programme forms part of a wider £3.5 billion investment in tailored employment support for disabled people and those with health conditions. But the fund has a particular focus on testing new approaches, with DWP looking beyond traditional employment interventions towards technology that could remove barriers to work or make existing support more accessible.
Technology companies showcased as part of the programme include Beam, which operates an AI caseworker platform that has supported more than 7,000 people with health conditions into work, and Cogniss, whose no-code technology supports the development of digital health and behaviour-change applications.
Other examples include Big Health's digital therapeutics for conditions including insomnia, anxiety and depression; Blum Health's NHS-compliant software and AI tools; and Radii Devices, which uses a web-based platform to help clinicians improve the fitting of prosthetics.
The fund follows a technology roundtable chaired by Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden in July, at which organisations demonstrated potential technical approaches to tackling economic inactivity.
McFadden said the government wanted ideas from businesses, charities and disabled people themselves to “help us transform employment support and make sure no talent is left behind”.
The initiative also reflects DWP's growing experimentation with digital technology in employment services. Last month, the department reported that tens of thousands of jobseekers had already used new digital employment tools, including an AI Work Assistant and online CV builder.
