Business mentoring: making the right support accessible to more businesses
In summer 2025 the Association of Business Mentors was invited to Co-Chair a government backed National Business Mentoring Council. A Council which brings together leading business and mentoring organisations to collaborate to reduce fragmentation in the mentoring landscape and raise awareness of the impact of, and signposting to, good quality mentoring. Today it launches its inaugural report on the UK’s business mentoring landscape.
Running and growing a business brings challenges and opportunities at every stage. Whilst tackling those business owners can benefit enormously from having someone they can turn to for support and guidance.
A mentor can help business owners build confidence, make better-informed decisions, access new networks and navigate difficult periods. However, whilst the benefits of mentoring are now recognised and understood, finding the right quality mentor remains a challenge for many businesses.
The National Business Mentoring Council’s (NBMC) inaugural report, UK Business Mentoring: The State of the Nation, published for National Mentoring Day (27th October 2026), explores the current state of business mentoring across the UK, highlighting the strength of existing provision and the opportunities to make it accessible to more businesses.
A strong mentoring network
The report identifies around 227 organisations delivering 241 formal mentoring initiatives across the UK. These span commercial providers, universities, charities, industry associations, corporates and public bodies, supporting everyone from aspiring entrepreneurs to established business owners.
Provision includes sustained, one-to-one mentoring, specialist programmes for groups such as women, people with disabilities, neurodiverse, ethnic-minority and young entrepreneurs, and emerging digital models. Around 80% of identified initiatives are free at the point of use, supported through public or private funding. There is also a rapidly growing profession of around 2,000 – 5,000 commercial business mentors, professionals who see it as a career of choice, often within portfolio careers.
This demonstrates the breadth of expertise already available. The challenge is ensuring businesses know where to find it and can identify a good quality mentor with the right experience for their needs.
Bridging the gap between provision and access
Over half of scaling businesses have a mentor and four in ten believe mentoring would be helpful to their future growth. Yet, for those businesses who want a mentor but do not have one, around 4 in 10, they are state that it is a struggle to find someone suitable.
Around 840,000 businesses have received mentoring through known programmes over the past five to ten years. Against approximately 5.5 million UK SMEs, there is a significant opportunity to extend the reach of existing support and ensure that the benefits of mentoring are being felt by businesses up and down the country. This has transformative potential for the businesses and the positive impact on the wider UK economy cannot be understated.
Achieving this means making mentoring easier to navigate, with clearer information about available programmes, better routes to finding suitable mentors and greater confidence in the quality of mentoring support that is available.
Working together to improve access
Established as part of the Government’s Backing Your Business: Our Plan for Small and Medium-sized Businesses, the NBMC brings together organisations from across the mentoring landscape to improve coordination, accessibility and understanding of the sector.
Its first year has seen the launch of Mentorsme, continued support through Government’s extension of the Help to Grow Management Course, greater engagement via its Business Growth Service and closer collaboration between Council members.
In 2027, the Council will build on this progress by raising awareness of mentoring options around the , strengthening collaboration, championing standards and accreditation. Better signposting between existing initiatives will also help businesses find the support most relevant to them.
Looking ahead
The UK already has a substantial mentoring network, with experienced mentors and established programmes supporting businesses at different stages of their journey. The opportunity now is to make better use of that resource, helping more business owners access the guidance they need to start, scale grow and thrive.
Read the full report here and find out more about the Council here.
