For Corporate Partners

The heritage trades aren’t short of work. They’re short of people to do it.

The craftspeople who repair Britain’s historic buildings - stonemasons, lime plasterers, roofers, joiners, bricklayers, metalworkers - are retiring faster than they’re being replaced. CraftGate trains the next generation. A corporate partnership gives your business early access to those trained people, and the data to plan your workforce around them.

Who this is for

Heritage-division contractors

Large construction firms that run a specialist heritage or conservation division. You need a steady flow of people with the right skills, and you can’t always find them.

Conservation specialists

Firms whose entire workload is heritage - stone conservation, masonry repair, historic roofing. You’d take on more work if you could find more people.

Institutional estates

Cathedrals, universities, landed estates and trusts that maintain historic buildings with in-house craft teams. Your experienced people are approaching retirement and there’s no obvious source of replacements.

What you get

A CraftGate corporate partnership gives you three things. The balance between them shifts depending on what matters most to you - but most partners start with recruitment.

One

Trained candidates, early

You see trained candidates as soon as they become available - before anyone outside the CraftGate network does. That includes young people finishing placements and career changers coming through the paid adult pathway.

If you want to go further, your own supervisors can host placements on your sites - putting you in direct contact with candidates during their training, not after it.

Two

Your name where the next generation is looking

Your company appears as a named supporter on CraftGate’s placement pages for the craft areas you work in. You appear in the newsletter, annual report, and on the partners page. When young people and the wider sector look at CraftGate, they see your name alongside it.

Three

Workforce data you can’t get anywhere else

Every quarter, you receive a report covering how many people are training in each craft, where they are in the country, and where they’re going after training. You can compare this against your own hiring and plan ahead. At year end, you get a workforce forecast for the year ahead.

How partnerships are shaped

Every partnership runs on one invoice a year, at a level based on the size of your organisation, how many craft areas you work across, and how much of the partnership you want to use. We agree the right shape in conversation - starting with what you’re trying to solve, not with a rate card. All partnerships run for a minimum of 12 months, with quarterly check-ins and a formal review before renewal.

How the first year works

  1. 01

    Scoping call

    A 45-minute conversation to understand your current heritage workforce, who’s approaching retirement, and where the gaps are.

  2. 02

    Written proposal

    Within 10 working days you receive a proposal setting out: the recommended partnership level, which craft areas to focus on, realistic targets for candidate numbers, and how often we’ll report to you. You can change anything before signing.

  3. 03

    Contract and setup

    A straightforward commercial contract - no drawn-out procurement process. Once signed, we set up your partner listing, introduce you to the supervisors in your craft areas, and confirm the first quarter’s schedule.

  4. 04

    Quarterly reviews

    One meeting per quarter. You receive the latest workforce data, a summary of the training pipeline, and profiles of candidates relevant to your needs.

  5. 05

    Year-end review and renewal

    Honest conversation about what worked and what didn’t. You can move up or down a tier at renewal with no penalty.

Common questions

How is this different from being a host?›
Hosts take on individual students for placements. Corporate partners work at a bigger scale - you get recruitment access across multiple craft areas and sites, your name on the platform, and workforce data. Many firms do both: hosting placements and holding a corporate partnership. If you’re already a host, that relationship counts towards the partnership.
Can we fund specific craft areas or cohorts?›
Yes. If you want to sponsor a particular craft track, underwrite a regional group of students, or name a bursary, that works. Restricted funding sits on top of your annual partnership fee, not instead of it.
What happens when we’re interested in a candidate?›
You see profiles and tell us who you’d like to talk to. We arrange the introduction. If a candidate ends up joining your business through CraftGate, you pay the standard Destination Fee - the same fee every employer in the network pays.
Do partners have any say in what CraftGate does?›
Our largest partners have a standing place in conversations about which craft areas and regions we expand into, and every partner is consulted on changes that directly affect their craft areas. We don’t give partners editorial control over our content.
How do you handle confidentiality?›
Your hiring patterns, workforce gaps, and strategic priorities are never shared with other partners or included in sector reports unless you explicitly agree. Any sector-wide data we publish is anonymised.
Can we start mid-year?›
Yes. Your 12-month term starts from the date you sign. If you join in Q4, the first year’s fee is reduced proportionally. Q1–Q3 starts pay the full annual fee and get a full year of delivery.

Start a conversation

The simplest way to find out whether a CraftGate partnership is right for your business is to talk to us. Tell us a bit about your organisation and what you’re trying to solve, and we’ll come back to you within five working days.

We respond to corporate enquiries within five working days.