What the Mayor's business support actually consists of

If you run a small business in London and go looking for the support City Hall offers, you arrive at the Mayor's business and economy pages. They are a reasonable place to start, and they are also a good illustration of why public business support is hard to use.

What is named there

Four things are named on the front of that section.

The London Growth Plan is presented as the overarching strategy. In City Hall's own words the plan "sets out how we will invest further in key priorities from housing and infrastructure to skills and transport". It is a strategy document rather than a scheme you apply to, and it matters mainly because it signals where other money is likely to follow.

Mayor's Challenge LDN is described as an initiative "helping to solve Londoner's most pressing challenges" — a challenge-led programme, which in practice tends to mean competitive rounds on defined themes rather than open funding.

The Good Work Standard is aimed at employers rather than at trading conditions. The pages describe it as support for "employers looking to embed best employment practices". It is an accreditation: you demonstrate your practices against a framework and are recognised for it.

The London Living Wage is the long-running campaign for a London-weighted wage floor, which City Hall says "has never been more crucial for workers". For an employer this is a commitment to make rather than a grant to receive, though accreditation carries reputational weight with some clients and public buyers.

What the front door does not tell you

Here is the honest observation. Reading that section, you cannot tell whether any of it applies to you.

The pages name the programmes and describe their purposes. They do not, at that level, publish the things a business owner needs in order to decide whether to spend an afternoon on this: how much money is available, when rounds open and close, which sectors or sizes of business qualify, and what an application actually involves. Each programme has its own pages, and the detail lives there, in different shapes.

That is a familiar pattern in public business support, and it has a cost that is rarely counted. The businesses that navigate it are the ones with somebody whose job includes navigating it. A five-person firm in Croydon does not have that person, which means support designed to help the smallest businesses is disproportionately claimed by larger ones.

How to use it anyway

Three practical suggestions.

First, read the Growth Plan for direction rather than for money. It tells you which sectors and which parts of London are about to receive attention, which is useful intelligence whether or not you ever apply for anything.

Second, go to the individual programme pages for the actual terms, and look for the eligibility and the deadline before you read the prose. If those are not stated, the programme is probably not currently open.

Third, do not stop at City Hall. Boroughs run their own business support, and it is frequently more accessible to a small local business than a pan-London scheme: smaller sums, shorter forms, and officers who answer the phone. Your borough's business pages are worth as much of your time as the Mayor's.

Why we are writing this down

We will cover specific schemes as they open, with the amounts and the deadlines, because that is the part that is actually usable. This piece is the map rather than the route: what exists, in whose words, and where the gaps are between the headline and the detail.

How we checked this

Facts in this piece were taken from the primary sources below and checked on 6 October 2026. Rules and figures change: check the source before you act on anything here.

• Mayor of London / Greater London Authority: business and economy — the four programmes and every quoted description come from this page, read on 6 October 2026