Register your interest for 2025
Applications for 2024 entry have now closed.
If you'd like to be contacted when the 2025 application form is open, register your interest.
About the Bursary
Thanks to a generous donation in 2024 from alumnus and Chair of Blackpool FC, Simon Sadler, we're able to offer a maintenance bursary for up to 36 care-experienced or care leaver students.
For 2025 entry, we'll be allocating 12 bursaries to students studying any undergraduate course at The University of Manchester.
The Bursary will support students with their living costs during their undergraduate degree (for a maximum of three years). Recipients of the award will receive an annual maintenance bursary of £10,000 per year.
It will be paid in two instalments in October and February. Each year, continued receipt of the bursary is dependent on satisfactory academic progression.
If your course is longer than three years, you can fund additional years of study through Student Finance England or by other means.
Who can apply?
Essential eligibility criteria
You must meet all of the following to apply:
- be a care leaver or care experienced (as per our definition below);
- have applied to study a degree at The University of Manchester starting in September 2025;
- be aged 24 years or under on 1 September 2025.
Priority criteria
We'll use the information in your application form to confirm eligibility for this Bursary. Not all eligible students will be successful in their application.
We'll use additional criteria to shortlist applicants, including:
- at what age you went into care;
- how long you've been in care for;
- how many school placements you've had in primary and secondary school;
- if your local authority is in Blackpool or north-west England;
- if you've lived in Blackpool or north-west England since September 2021.
- Care leaver: a care leaver is generally someone who has been in the care of their local authority for a period of 13 weeks or more around their 16th birthday.
- Care-experienced: care-experienced includes all students who can be reasonably verified as having been in care at any stage up to the age of 18 – and includes those who were adopted (from care) before the age of 18*.
*We recognise kinship care as being a significant source of care within the UK Care System, and that many young people in Kinship Care have a care order and/or are known to the local authority. Your local authority will need to provide a letter to evidence this in order to be eligible for the Sadler Bursary.
- Blackburn with Darwen
- Blackpool
- Bolton
- Bury
- Cheshire East
- Cheshire West and Chester
- Cumberland
- Halton
- Knowsley
- Lancashire
- Liverpool
- Manchester
- Oldham
- Rochdale
- Salford
- Sefton
- St Helens
- Stockport
- Tameside
- Trafford
- Warrington
- Westmorland and Furness
- Wigan
- Wirral
Application and selection process
Applications open on Monday, 3 March and close on Sunday, 27 April at 11:59PM. You must complete this form to be considered.
A small selection panel will shortlist applicants, and you’ll receive a decision on your application by Tuesday, 3 June.
Submit additional documents
As part of your application, you’ll need to upload the following documents:
- confirmation that you meet the care leaver/care-experienced criteria – such as confirmation of your independent status as a care leaver or a letter from your local authority;
- a 500-word personal statement explaining how the Sadler Bursary will support your success at University;
- for students meeting priority criteria: evidence that you've lived in/belong to a local authority in Blackpool or the north-west at any point since 1 September 2020.
Contact us
Application enquiries should be sent to: sadlerbursary@manchester.ac.uk.
If you'd like to be contacted when the application form is live, please complete this registration of interest form.
Students can apply for multiple bursaries/scholarships, including the Cowrie Scholarship, Elizabeth Moley Bursary, Education Maters Scholarship and the Raheem Sterling Foundation Scholarship (if eligible).
However, if you're successful, you will only be able to receive one bursary/scholarship.