Enterprise Ireland Key Manager Grant

The Key Manager Grant co-funds the recruitment of a senior manager whose expertise the company does not currently have — commonly in international sales, operations, engineering or digital leadership. Support is typically up to 50% of salary cost over a defined period, with published ceilings that have run to a fixed quote per manager. Growing Enterprise Ireland clients where the growth constraint is a missing senior capability.

What this scheme funds

Salary support for hiring senior expertise the company does not currently have.

  • Salary of a newly recruited senior manager
  • In some cases, recruitment costs
  • Roles that add a capability not currently in the business

What it does not fund

These costs are routinely ruled ineligible under this scheme.

  • Replacing an existing manager
  • Promoting an existing employee
  • Roles with no strategic growth rationale

Who is eligible

Eligibility is decided by Enterprise Ireland, not by Digital Bridge.

  • Enterprise Ireland client company
  • The role represents genuinely new capability
  • A growth plan the role directly enables

How to apply

Typical end-to-end timeline: Typically six to twelve weeks to approval; plan recruitment around it rather than ahead of it.

  • Agree the role and rationale with your development adviser
  • Document the capability gap and the growth it unlocks
  • Apply before making the appointment
  • Recruit after approval and claim against the agreed schedule

Evidence you will need

Applications are usually delayed by missing paperwork rather than by weak projects.

  • Job specification
  • Growth plan tied to the role
  • Payroll evidence on claim

Why applications get rejected

The recurring reasons assessors give under this scheme.

  • Hire already made
  • Role is a replacement
  • Capability already exists in the team

What Digital Bridge delivers under this scheme

Illustrative net cost applies the published rate (Typically up to 50% of the manager's salary cost over a defined period) to our published engagement bands. It is arithmetic, not an offer of funding.

  • Recruitment landing page and careers section for the new hire — list from €1,200, illustrative net cost Not covered — the grant subsidises salary, not marketing spend
  • Internal tooling and onboarding systems for the new manager — list from €2,500, illustrative net cost Fund separately (Grow Digital or Digital Transition Fund), if eligible

Who decides this grant, and what we are responsible for

Enterprise Ireland decides eligibility, approval and payment under this scheme. Digital Bridge supplies the work and the documentation an assessor asks for from the supplier side.

  • Digital Bridge does not administer, assess, approve, pay or appeal any grant. Every decision is made by the funding body named on the scheme, under its own published rules.
  • This section is general information, not financial, tax, legal or grant-writing advice. It is not an application, a pre-approval, or any form of assurance that you will be funded.
  • Scheme rates, ceilings and eligibility change without notice and several supports are administered locally, so your Local Enterprise Office or agency may apply different rules to the ones published here. Confirm everything with the funder in writing before you commit.
  • Our questionnaire is a deterministic guide based only on the answers you give. It cannot see your accounts, your sector classification, your state-aid position or your previous awards, so it can suggest a scheme you are ultimately found ineligible for.
  • If an application is refused, delayed, reduced or clawed back, our fees for work you have instructed remain payable. We recommend you do not instruct chargeable work until your funder confirms in writing what it will support.
  • Costs incurred before a funder receives your application are almost always ineligible. Timing is your responsibility, and we will always tell you when we think you should wait.

How the Key Manager Grant works in practice

The Key Manager Grant co-funds the salary of a senior hire a company could not otherwise justify — typically a first head of operations, technology, finance or export sales. It is one of the few supports aimed squarely at management capability rather than at equipment or projects. Assessment focuses on whether the role is genuinely additional and whether the company can sustain it once support ends, because a co-funded salary that collapses in year three has not achieved anything. The role must usually be new and senior; backfilling an existing position or re-labelling a current employee will not qualify. Recruitment timing is the practical difficulty, since the right candidate rarely appears on the funder's schedule.

What we do as the supplier on the quote

This is not a scheme we supply into, and there is no version of a software project that substitutes for a senior hire. The only observation worth offering is one we make regularly: companies sometimes reach for a system when the actual gap is that nobody senior owns the function. Automating a process with no owner produces automated confusion. Where a company is weighing a key manager against a platform investment, the manager usually has to come first, and we would rather say that than quote for the platform.

What makes a Key Manager application credible?

This support co-funds a senior hire, and the case rests on the gap rather than on the person. An application that describes an impressive candidate but not the capability the company currently lacks reads as recruitment subsidy. The stronger version states what the business cannot do today, what that costs in missed opportunity, and why the capability has to be brought in rather than developed internally. Be realistic about the salary market for the role: a co-funded figure well below the going rate suggests the hire will not be made or will not be kept. And plan for after the funded period, because the position is expected to become self-sustaining and assessors will ask how that is intended to work.

Can it fund a Head of Digital or AI lead?

Where digital or AI leadership is a genuine capability gap tied to a growth plan, companies have used it that way. The test is the capability gap, not the job title.

Can the key manager be an existing employee promoted internally?

Generally not — the support targets additional senior capability the company does not currently have. Internal promotions and backfilled roles are typically outside scope. Confirm the current definition with Enterprise Ireland before structuring the recruitment.

Source and last review

Scheme parameters checked against Enterprise Ireland — Company Supports (https://www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/supports) on 2026-08-21. Reviewed quarterly. Next scheduled review: November 2026. Digital Bridge is a supplier, not the awarding body. Eligibility, approval and payment are decided solely by the funding body named on each scheme. Figures below are the published scheme parameters as at the review date shown, and net costs are arithmetic illustrations of the published rate applied to our published prices. Always confirm current rules with the funder before you commit to any spend, because expenditure incurred before an application is received is almost always ineligible.

Who does the Key Manager Grant actually support?

This grant is aimed at growing Enterprise Ireland client companies where the constraint on growth is a genuinely missing senior capability — commonly international sales, operations, engineering or digital leadership — that the company plans to fill by recruiting a new senior manager rather than promoting or replacing someone already there. Support is typically up to 50% of the manager's salary cost over a defined period, with published ceilings running to a fixed quote per manager, though the specific rate and period depend on the case made. The most common reason applications fail is straightforward: the hire has already been made before approval, or the role is a replacement for an existing position rather than a new capability. Assessors are looking for a documented capability gap tied directly to a stated growth plan, not simply a vacancy. Prepare the job specification and a growth plan that explains exactly what the role unlocks before you apply, and hold off on recruiting until the written approval is in hand.

Where might a digital or AI lead hire fit this scheme?

A Head of Digital or AI lead role can be funded under this grant where the capability gap is genuine — the company currently has no one who can own its data, automation or AI strategy — and the growth plan explains what that role makes possible, whether that is new markets, new product lines or measurable efficiency gains. The grant is judged on the capability gap and the growth rationale, not the job title itself, so the application should describe what the business cannot currently do rather than simply naming a role. This grant does not fund the marketing or onboarding systems around the hire; a careers page or recruitment landing page, for instance, sits outside its scope entirely, and internal onboarding tools would need to be funded separately, potentially through the Grow Digital Voucher or Digital Transition Fund if eligible. Keep the salary application and any related digital project as two distinct pieces of paperwork with two distinct rationales. Confirm current eligibility and ceilings with your development adviser, since the final decision on any award rests with Enterprise Ireland alone.

How we decide what to quote for Ei Key Manager Grant

Digital Bridge delivers this work from Gorey Business Park in County Wexford on a fixed written scope — one price, one delivery date — and the client owns the finished work outright. The Key Manager Grant co-funds the recruitment of a senior manager whose expertise the company does not currently have — commonly in international sales, operations, engineering or digital leadership. Before a figure is given, four questions are answered in order, and a named person signs the scope off — it is never generated automatically.

  1. Is this the right job at all? We look at what you already have online, whether the domain and Google Business Profile are in your own name, and what Ei Key Manager Grant customers currently ask you for. If a repair or a single page would solve it, we quote that instead.
  2. What does the work have to achieve first? The scope is written around one outcome — enquiries, bookings, orders or credibility — and anything else is listed as optional so it can be dropped without renegotiating.
  3. What will it cost and when will it be live? Page count, content readiness, integrations and whether photography or copy still has to be produced set the price and the date, both fixed in writing before work starts.
  4. How will people in Ei Key Manager Grant find it afterwards? Local search setup is included in a build; ongoing SEO is a separate optional retainer you can start or stop with notice.

Checkable facts behind this Ei Key Manager Grant page

Author and reviewer: Joey Bray, founder of Digital Bridge, building and maintaining Irish business websites since 2016. Studio address: Gorey Business Park, Gorey, Co. Wexford. Phone: 085 224 1848. Every claim below can be checked before you speak to us.

  • Published starting prices, not estimates released after a sales call — see the pricing page for the full ladder.
  • Live client sites you can open and test yourself are listed in the work section.
  • One contact from first call to launch, rather than an account handler relaying messages.
  • A plain-text mirror of this page is published for AI assistants at the same path with a .md extension.