Graduate Role Incentive

Features & Benefits

• Provides a 20% grant of up to £6,000 towards the cost of a graduate employee’s first year net salary (minimum salary must be £21,000), and a refund of the employer’s National Insurance up to a maximum of £3,055, paid 1 year in arrears
• Helps local employers to provide graduate level opportunities within their organisations
• Encourages an expansion of the Island’s workforce, helping to create opportunities for graduates in the Isle of Man and to grow the Island’s working population

Eligible roles & sectors

• New graduate level roles requiring RQF Level 6 or above qualifications within businesses in all sectors are eligible for assistance, providing they meet the eligibility criteria in the Guidelines*

Key Conditions

The business

• must have a permanent establishment on the Island
• must be an eligible business under the Enterprise Act 2008 (Eligible Businesses) Regulations 2018*
• be up-to-date in respect of Income Tax, VAT and National Insurance
• must be expanding its workforce on the Island
• submit their application in advance of appointment
• must not claim both the Graduate Role Incentive as well as the Employee Relocation Incentive for the same role

The job

• must offer a minimum starting salary of £21,000
• must constitute a full-time regular employment, lasting not less than one year
• must require an RQF Level 6 qualification or higher in the job description
• must be a new role to grow the firm’s existing headcount; where overall headcount is reduced, it must show an increase in headcount in the section of the business the role has been created in
• must be above the average of the previous five intakes if the business makes recurring graduate hires *

The employee

• must be directly employed by the business
• must work predominantly on the Island
• must have graduated from an accredited Higher Educational institution at RQF Level 6 or higher (or equivalent) within 2 years of the commencement of employment
• must become resident on the Island for income tax purposes, if not already resident at the time of application

*Further details can be found in the Guidelines attached under downloadable resources. In particular, please refer to Appendix 6B.

How to apply

Before applying, eligible businesses should approach the Department for Enterprise to establish whether an application can be made for the relevant role.

Once it has been established that an application can be made, applicants will be asked to submit the following information: 

• a fully completed and signed application form (available under ‘Downloadable Documents’)
• a brief summary of the business plan explaining how the applicant plans to increase its workforce on the Island; this must include:
  • (in the cases of existing businesses) details of the applicant’s current workforce, specifically numbers of directly employed, permanent employees, both full-time and part-time, the latter also expressed as FTEEs
  • details as to jobs and salaries in respect of which assistance is claimed
  • a job description for the vacancy the graduate would be filling to ensure it is suitable graduate-level employment
  • a copy of the development plan for the graduate to ensure the employment has sufficient opportunities for development, including criteria required for the graduate to be retained following the end of the period for which financial support is available
  • permission for the Department to obtain information from the Treasury as to the applicant and the applicant’s employees in respect of whom assistance is sought (which will in turn require the applicant to obtain the requisite permissions from its own employees)