How Can You Train Staff on a Budget? Low-Cost and Free CPD Options for UK Employers

You can keep a small team legally trained without paying for expensive classroom days. Much of what a UK small business needs is free, such as HSE guidance, your own induction, toolbox talks and mentoring, or available as low-cost online awareness training. And the biggest cost of training is usually the time staff spend on it, not the course fee. The exception is training the law or the risk says must be hands-on: first aid at work certificates, practical manual handling, face-fit testing and forklift or plant operation. Cutting corners there is false economy. Spend your money there, and keep everything else lean.

At a glance: Nexis CPD sells CPD-accredited online courses at £9 each, with any three for £18; teams of 5 or more pay £6 a course place, with a portal to assign courses and track completion.

This guide is for owners and managers of small UK businesses with roughly 2 to 50 staff: care providers, cafés and restaurants, building firms, offices and shops. It covers what the law makes you pay for, the free options, current government funding, what online training can and cannot do, the hidden costs, and a worked example with real prices.

What training does the law say an employer must pay for?

Health and safety training that the law requires is the employer’s cost, and it happens in paid time. Section 9 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 stops an employer charging employees for anything done or provided to meet a specific requirement of health and safety law. Regulation 13 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires adequate health and safety training when someone is recruited and when they face new or increased risks, repeated periodically where appropriate, and it must take place during working hours. Article 21 of the Fire Safety Order says the same about fire safety training in England and Wales.

Two things follow for your budget. First, the law requires training to be adequate but does not say it has to be a classroom course. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) leaflet Health and safety training: A brief guide (INDG345) lists acceptable methods including instruction, coaching, on-the-job training, distance learning and computer-based learning, and says much effective training can be done in-house. Second, because training happens in working time, that time is a real cost. GOV.UK confirms that time spent training counts as working time for minimum wage purposes. Our guide to health and safety training requirements covers the legal duties in more depth.

What free training options are there for UK employers?

More than most owners realise. None of these costs a course fee, though each takes someone’s time to prepare and deliver.

• HSE guidance. HSE offers many publications as free downloads, including short INDG leaflets on topics from manual handling to working at height. INDG345 sets out a five-step approach: decide what training you need, set priorities, choose methods, deliver it, then check it worked.
• Your own induction. INDG345 says new recruits need basic induction training on how to work safely, including your first aid, fire and evacuation arrangements. Nobody knows your fire exits, chemicals and equipment better than you, so run it yourself from your risk assessment and get the new starter to sign a checklist.
• Toolbox talks. A toolbox talk is a short briefing on one topic, usually at the start of a shift: a near miss, a new piece of equipment, a seasonal risk. They cost a few minutes of paid time and keep messages fresh. Record the date, the topic and who attended.
• Mentoring and shadowing. HSE counts coaching and on-the-job training as training. Pairing a new starter with an experienced colleague works well, provided the colleague does things the right way. INDG345 also stresses that new, inexperienced and young workers need adequate supervision.
• Acas e-learning. Acas offers free e-learning for employers and employees on employment topics, including contracts and written statements, bullying and harassment, managing conflict, equality, diversity and inclusion, and managing people. It is useful for new supervisors. It does not cover health and safety.
• Food Standards Agency (FSA) allergy training. GOV.UK guidance for food businesses says the FSA provides free online food allergy training. It has six modules, takes about three hours and ends with a certificate, although the FSA says completion is not official recognition or evidence of competence. The same guidance says food handlers do not have to hold a food hygiene certificate. Skills can come from courses, on-the-job training or self-study, and you should keep a record of training to show an inspector.
• NHS elearning for healthcare (elfh). The NHS England elfh Hub is free. According to its registration guidance, NHS staff and social care staff, including care home and hospice workers, can get full access. Care staff register with a care setting registration code from their employer. Members of the public get a smaller set of freely available programmes, and private healthcare organisations license access separately.

Is there government funding for staff training in 2026?

Yes, but most of it applies in England only and comes with conditions. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own schemes.

• Skills Bootcamps. These are free for the person training. If you use one to train an existing employee, GOV.UK says you may be able to get up to 90% of the cost funded. Under the funding rules, employers with fewer than 250 staff pay 10% and larger employers 30%. Local areas run them, so what is on offer depends on where you are.
• Apprenticeships. Only employers with an annual pay bill over £3 million pay the apprenticeship levy. If you do not pay it, the government pays 100% of training and assessment costs, up to the funding band maximum, for apprentices aged 16 to 24, and 95% for older apprentices. Employers who do not pay the levy can also get a hiring payment of up to £2,000 for a new apprentice aged 16 to 24. You still pay the apprentice’s wages and give them paid time to train.
• Apprenticeship units. Since 28 April 2026, the government’s Growth and Skills Levy has also funded short courses called apprenticeship units in England. For employers who do not pay the levy, the government funds the training and assessment costs up to the unit’s funding rate. Learners must be employees aged 19 or over. Units are 30 to 140 hours of tutor-delivered training in working hours, and only units approved by Skills England qualify. They are designed to fill skills gaps, so check Skills England’s list before assuming one covers what you need.
• Adult social care. The Learning and Development Support Scheme continues for 2026 to 2027. It reimburses eligible care employers in England for listed courses and qualifications taken by non-regulated care staff, up to a maximum per item. You need an up-to-date Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set account. It does not cover backfill pay or travel, and the funding pot is limited.
• Construction. Employers registered with CITB, the construction industry training board, can apply for grants towards short courses (including plant tests), qualifications and apprenticeships, whether or not they pay the CITB levy, provided their levy returns are up to date.
• Local schemes. Mayoral authorities now receive adult skills funding directly, and local areas run Skills Bootcamps, so check your mayoral authority’s or council’s skills pages for funded courses. HSE also suggests asking trade associations and employer bodies such as your local Chamber of Commerce.

Is cheap online training good enough?

For the knowledge part of most compliance topics, yes, and it is now normal. In the government’s Employer Skills Survey 2024 (UK findings published November 2025), 70% of UK employers that trained their staff had funded or arranged online training or e-learning in the previous 12 months.

Online awareness courses are good for:

• Awareness topics such as fire safety, the principles of manual handling, COSHH, food hygiene, safeguarding awareness and data protection
• Refreshers, where staff need reminding rather than retraining from scratch
• Consistency, so part-timers and night staff get the same content as everyone else
• Records, with a dated certificate for each person

Online courses are not good for practical skills, and they cannot replace site-specific instruction: where your fire assembly point is, who your first aid appointed person is, how your slicer or hoist works. Pair any online course with that local briefing. Then do HSE’s step five and check people are actually working the way they were trained. Nexis CPD courses are CPD-accredited awareness training, independently accredited by Assured CPD. They are not regulated qualifications.

Which training should you never try to do cheaply online?

Anything where competence means doing something with your hands, or where a regulation or approved code of practice expects practical assessment. Paying twice, once for an online course that does not meet the requirement and again for the real thing, is the most common way small firms waste training money.

• First aid at work. HSE’s guide to selecting a first-aid training provider (GEIS3) says a first aid at work (FAW) course should be at least 18 hours over at least three days, and emergency first aid at work (EFAW) at least six hours. Blended learning is accepted, but HSE strongly recommends the practical elements are assessed by direct observation.
• Practical manual handling. The principles can be learned online. Technique, and especially people handling, needs hands-on training. See our guide to manual handling training requirements.
• Face-fit testing. If staff wear tight-fitting masks, each person needs a fit test with the make, model and size of mask they will wear. It is an in-person test, not a course. Our guide on whether face-fit testing is a legal requirement explains who needs it.
• Forklifts and plant. HSE says lift truck operator training should include basic training, specific job training and familiarisation on the job under close supervision. A basic course is typically three to five days.

What does staff training really cost a small business?

Mostly wages. In the Employer Skills Survey 2024, the wages of trainees made up 49% of all UK employer spending on training. Fees to external training providers made up just 7%. For sites with 5 to 24 employees the figures were 45% and 7%. So the course price is rarely the biggest number. The hours, the travel and the cover are.

When you compare options, count:

• Staff time, paid at the normal rate. You cannot make legally required training an unpaid evening at home.
• Cover: overtime or agency staff to keep the café open or the rota safe while people train.
• Travel to a training venue, including the time, which counts as working time for minimum wage purposes when staff travel from work.
• Extras: separate charges for certificates, exams, registration or reassessment.
• Subscriptions billed per user per month, whether or not anyone logs in.
• Expiry: places or licences that lapse before they are used.
• Admin: chasing completions and finding certificates when an inspector or client asks.

To compare like for like, work out the total cost per person trained to the standard you actually need, including time, not the headline price per course.

How do the main training routes compare?

Route	Typical use	Pros	Cons
Free guidance (HSE, FSA, Acas)	Understanding the rules; self-study; background reading for managers	No fee; authoritative; always current	No assessment or certificate in most cases; you have to turn it into training yourself
In-house (induction, toolbox talks, shadowing)	Site-specific hazards, procedures and equipment	No fee; tailored to your workplace; easy to repeat	Only as good as the person delivering it; needs a written record to count as evidence
Online awareness courses	Awareness topics, refreshers, new starters on different shifts	Low cost per person; flexible timing; instant certificate	No practical skills; must be paired with local instruction
Classroom or virtual classroom	Topics that need discussion or questions, management training	Interaction with a trainer; group learning	Highest time cost; travel and cover; fixed dates
Accredited practical training	First aid at work, forklifts and plant, people handling, face-fit testing	Meets specific legal or industry requirements; assessed competence	Higher fees and days away from work; renewal dates to manage

How can you cut training costs without cutting compliance?

• Train by role, not by headcount. Start from your risk assessments and list who needs what. The office administrator and the delivery driver do not need identical training.
• Appoint and train a few people for specialist roles. HSE says that some small low-risk workplaces need only a first-aid box and an appointed person, who needs no formal first aid training. Your first-aid needs assessment decides. Likewise, you need as many fire marshals as your fire risk assessment calls for, not a whole team. Our guide to fire safety training law covers this.
• Use free resources first, and pay only for what needs assessment, a certificate or hands-on practice.
• Bundle each person’s refreshers so they complete them in one sitting, but stagger renewals across the team so you are not covering everyone in the same month.
• Keep a training matrix. A simple grid of who needs what, when they did it and when it is due stops you paying for training people do not need. See our guidance on building a training matrix that survives scrutiny.
• Keep the records. INDG345 recommends keeping records even for in-house training. If you cannot show training happened, you may end up paying for it twice.
• Match the level to the role. Buying a qualification where awareness would do, or the reverse, is a common waste. Our guide to charity training requirements has a section on where training budgets get wasted that applies to any small organisation.

How much would it cost to train a small café team?

Take a café with six staff, including the owner. The owner has done the risk assessments, and the first-aid needs assessment found the café is low risk, so the owner is the appointed person. A plan might look like this:

• Everyone: an induction and short toolbox talks run by the owner (free); the FSA’s online allergy training (free, about three hours each); and three online awareness courses: Food Safety and Hygiene (Catering) Level 2, Fire Safety Awareness and Manual Handling Awareness, as staff lift deliveries.
• One person: the Fire Warden Fire Marshal course, plus a walk-through of the café’s own fire procedure.
• If needs change: if the café adds risks or staff and the needs assessment then calls for a trained first-aider, budget for an in-person EFAW course for one or two people.

Six people doing three courses each is 18 course places. At team pricing that is 18 × £6 = £108, against £162 at £9 each. In fairness, each person buying their own three courses for £18 also comes to £108. Team pricing adds one payment, a portal to assign the courses and a view of who has finished. The fire marshal course is £9 on top. A 10-person care team doing four courses each is 40 places, or £240 at team pricing, against £360 at £9 each and £270 if each person bought three for £18 plus one at £9.

As the survey figures suggest, the fees are usually the smaller part. The bigger cost is the paid hours staff spend learning, which is why even free in-house training needs planning.

Which courses suit a new starter’s core training?

These three £9 courses work well together as an awareness foundation for new starters in most small workplaces, each with a verifiable certificate:

• Introduction to Health and Safety: health and safety law, hazards and risk, risk assessment and controlling risk. It is ideal for induction.
• Fire Safety Awareness: fire safety law, how fire starts and spreads, prevention, means of escape and emergency procedures.
• Manual Handling Awareness: the avoid, assess, reduce approach and assessing a task using the TILE factors.

Any three courses cost £18 with the pay-for-2-get-3 offer. Add them to the cart and the discount applies automatically. These are awareness courses: they are CPD accredited, but they are not regulated qualifications and are not practical training.

Where can you start training staff on a budget?

Start with your risk assessments and a one-page training matrix, use the free resources above, and buy only what you cannot do yourself. Nexis CPD’s online courses cover the awareness layer at a predictable price.

£9 per course. CPD accredited, 100% online, verifiable e-certificate. Pay for 2, get 3 — any 3 courses for £18. Training 5 or more staff? Team pricing starts at £6 a course place, with a portal to track completion.

Frequently asked questions

Do employers have to pay for staff training?

For training that health and safety law requires, yes. Section 9 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 bars charging employees for it, and the Management Regulations require it in working hours. Other training depends on the employment contract.

Is there free health and safety training for small businesses?

Yes. HSE’s guidance is free online and many of its leaflets are free to download, and HSE accepts in-house training such as inductions, coaching and on-the-job training. Free resources still need someone to deliver them, and you should keep a record of who was trained and when.

Can staff complete mandatory training at home in their own time?

Not unpaid. Health and safety and fire safety training must take place during working hours. If you require staff to do training at home, that time still counts as working time for minimum wage purposes, so they must be paid for it.

Is online health and safety training legally acceptable?

For the knowledge element, generally yes. The law requires adequate training but does not set a format, and HSE lists computer-based learning as a method. Practical skills such as first aid at work or forklift operation need hands-on training and assessment.

Does a small business need a trained first-aider?

It depends on your first-aid needs assessment. HSE says some small low-risk workplaces need only a stocked first-aid box and an appointed person, who needs no formal training. Higher-risk work usually needs trained first-aiders.

How does Nexis CPD team pricing work?

From 5 staff, course places cost £6 each, however many you buy. Places last 12 months. You pay once by card, then add staff, choose their courses and track completion in your own portal.

This article is general information about training staff in UK workplaces and is not legal advice. Health and safety law described here applies in Great Britain, and the Fire Safety Order applies in England and Wales; Northern Ireland and Scotland have their own legislation. The funding schemes described apply in England unless stated, and their rules and budgets change, so check the current GOV.UK guidance before relying on them. Prices are those published on nexiscpd.co.uk in October 2026. Nexis CPD courses are CPD-accredited awareness training, not regulated qualifications, and do not replace practical certification such as first aid at work, practical manual handling, face-fit testing or forklift and plant training.