Introducing Raise Your Game National: Taking Our Skills Programme Across Scotland

We're thrilled to announce the launch of Raise Your Game National - a brand new, Scotland-wide skills development programme for creative freelancers, sole traders, and early-career practitioners, launching this year in partnership with six regional creative networks.

If you're already familiar with Raise Your Game, our skills programme for Edinburgh-based creatives, you might be wondering how this fits in. So let's clear that up first: Raise Your Game National is a brand new, separate programme. Our original Raise Your Game is staying exactly where it is, it's not going anywhere.

Six Years of Raise Your Game in Edinburgh

For six years now, Raise Your Game has been helping Edinburgh-based freelancers and early-career creatives build the practical skills, confidence, and connections they need for sustainable careers. Throughout each cohort we've watched members go from uncertain and isolated in their practice to equipped with real business skills, stronger professional identities, and peer networks they can lean on after the programme ends.

It's one of our proudest pieces of work at Creative Edinburgh and the results speak for themselves. People leave with strengthened confidence, sharper self-promotion, and real progress toward sustainable creative careers and project work.

Given that track record, we always knew there was an opportunity to do more. When the 2024 Creative Scotland Review of Support for Emerging Creative Businesses highlighted how fragmented and inconsistent creative skills support is across the rest of Scotland, the next step felt obvious: take what's working in Edinburgh and make it available everywhere else.

What Is Raise Your Game National?

Raise Your Game National scales our proven model out to six regional creative networks across the country: Creative Glasgow, Creative Dundee, the Creative Arts Business Network (Scottish Borders), Dumfries and Galloway Unlimited, OnFife, and Applied Arts Scotland. Led by Creative Edinburgh and funded by Creative Scotland, it's designed for freelancers, sole traders, small creative businesses, or anyone making a pivot in their creative career.

The cohort of 35 participants (five or six from each of the partner networks) will take part in:

• An in-person introductory session to kick things off, build connections, and set goals for the programme ahead
• Eight online sessions across three chapters - Taking Stock, Making Moves, and Thinking Forward - covering business planning, marketing, finance, project management, data, legal awareness, open source, and design thinking
• A final in-person Insight to Industry session, connecting participants with employers, festivals, and creative agencies from right across Scotland

On top of the core sessions, participants get access to a bespoke digital resource hub, mentoring opportunities, and up to 26 weeks of post-programme guidance from the Creative Edinburgh team - making sure the support doesn't stop after the final session wraps up.

Why Edinburgh-Based Creatives Aren't Eligible (For Now)

Since Raise Your Game already runs successfully here in Edinburgh, Raise Your Game National is open exclusively to creatives based in one of the six partner network regions. Our Edinburgh-based community already has a dedicated route into this kind of support, so RYG National is about reaching everyone else.

That means our regular Raise Your Game programme isn't pausing or being replaced, it'll be back as normal, with recruitment for the next Edinburgh cohort happening towards the end of 2026 and into early 2027. So if you're Edinburgh-based, keep an eye out for comms coming through our Pathways Programme.

Know Someone Outside Edinburgh? Spread the Word

Applications for Raise Your Game National are currently open and close at midnight on Monday 20th July 2026, with places allocated by random draw from all eligible applicants to ensure a fair spread across Scotland.

If you're based in Glasgow, Dundee, the Scottish Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, Fife, or anywhere connected to Applied Arts Scotland, applications won't be advertised here - they'll come directly through your regional creative network. So if you know a freelancer, sole trader, or creative in one of those areas, do them a favour and tell them to keep an eye on communications from their local network.

A Word of Thanks to Creative Scotland

None of this would be possible without the continued support of Creative Scotland, whose backing has allowed us to take a programme that's worked so well in Edinburgh and offer it to creatives right across the country. Their commitment to strengthening the support landscape for Scotland's creative freelancers and small businesses is exactly the kind of investment that helps the sector grow more resilient, connected, and sustainable. We're hugely grateful to have them alongside us on this.

Could You Help the Creative Sector Thrive?

Programmes like Raise Your Game National only exist because organisations choose to invest in the people who make up our creative industries. If you're reading this from a position to fund, sponsor, or otherwise support work like this, we'd love to talk. Scotland's creative sector is full of talented, ambitious people and what they need most is the backing to turn that talent into sustainable careers. Get in touch with the Creative Edinburgh team to find out how you could help make that happen.

We can't wait to welcome our first RYG National cohort and bring the same energy, support, and results that Raise Your Game has built in Edinburgh to communities right across Scotland.