Upskilling colleagues through Artificial Intelligence Apprenticeships

How Our Artificial Intelligence (AI) Apprenticeship Programme Is Upskilling and Empowering Colleagues

Apprenticeships aren’t just for those starting out, they offer colleagues at every stage of their career the chance to grow, develop new skills and adapt to a changing world.

This Apprenticeship Week 2026, we hear from our Senior Director of Human Resources about our new AI apprenticeship programme, which is helping colleagues across the business understand how AI can support their work and drive innovation.

Gaynor Powley, Senior Director Human Resources Europe

Could you give an overview of the AI apprenticeship programme and who is currently taking part?

In partnership with Boom Training and Turing College, we launched our AI training programme with two levels of learning: the AI for Business apprenticeship and the Data Analyst apprenticeship. Both programmes run for 15 months and are funded through our UK Apprenticeship Levy. Alongside this, we are also running an AI Literacy foundation programme.

Around 60 colleagues from across the business are currently taking part, including Finance, Operations, Customer Service, Human Resources and members of our Leadership Team. These programmes teach hands-on skills to help colleagues use AI more confidently in daily work and boost productivity, creativity and efficiency.

Why is it important for organisations like ours to build skills in AI? 

Keeping up to date with new technology enables us to be more efficient and dynamic as a business. From a culture perspective, it’s also vital that we continue investing in our people by building capability in skills that will enable them to develop their careers and grow professionally.

Beyond technical knowledge, what broader skills do people gain from completing an AI apprenticeship? 

We expect our colleagues will gain more confidence from being able to apply their learning to real business scenarios and deliver meaningful results. They also become part of a wider cohort of learners, giving them insights into other departments and the broader business. We’ve already seen colleagues networking and building relationships with people they might not otherwise work closely with.

How do you see the AI apprenticeship programme evolving over the coming years? 

It’s still new – and we are still learning a lot about how it can support the business. Our goal is to build a baseline of AI skills across the organisation.  We see this as a continuing programme and plan to put further cohorts through the training over the next couple of years. Our aim is for this skill set to be embedded across our organisation in the future.