Turning our AI skills ambition into action

Today (9 June 2025) during London Tech Week, the UK government has announced a new government-industry partnership to upskill and train 7.5 million UK workers in essential skills to use AI by 2030, equivalent to around 20% of the UK workforce. 

techUK members including Google, Microsoft, IBM, SAS, Accenture, Sage, BT, Amazon, Intuit, and Salesforce have signed up to the partnership. They have committed to making high-quality training materials freely available for businesses of all sizes to support the upskilling and training of their staff.

Ahead of the Spending Review in two days, the government is also committing to a £187 million programme to bring digital skills and AI learning into classrooms and communities and train up people of all ages and backgrounds for the tech careers of the future. This skills plan comes as part of the AI Opportunities Action Plan, published in January, which outlined nine recommendations to train, attract and retain the next generation of AI scientists and founders. 

Commenting on the London Tech Week AI skills announcement, Julian David OBE, CEO of techUK said: 

“techUK stands ready to support the government in achieving its ambition to upskill 7.5 million people with AI skills by 2030. Many of our members have already made strong commitments of their own on developing skills.

“What is needed now is clearer delivery on the recommendations from the AI Opportunities Action plan, in particular, further industry collaboration to make it easier for companies of all sizes to retrain and upskill their staff. We look forward to working in partnership to build an AI-ready workforce that can drive innovation and make people’s lives better across the UK.” 

The TechFirst package will support the development of AI skills through four strands - Youth, Graduate, Expert, and Local: 

  • TechYouth (£24m) - will give 1 million students over three years across every secondary school in the UK the chance to learn about technology and gain access to new skills training and career opportunities. 
  • TechGrad (£96.8m) - will support 1,000 exceptional domestic students a year with undergraduate scholarships in areas like AI, cyber security, and computer science. This will also go towards 100 Research MSc places in key tech sectors, and 100 elite AI scholarships. Applicants will be able to apply to the scheme online and those successful will have their bursaries paid from a central fund. 
  • TechExpert (£48.4m) - will give up to £10,000 in additional funding to 500 domestic PhD students conducting research in tech with the aim of accelerating cutting-edge innovation, strengthen the UK’s research pipeline in strategic technology sectors, and ensure that emerging talent is supported to contribute to national tech leadership. 
  • TechLocal (£18m) - will offer seed funding to help regional innovators and small businesses develop new tech products and adopt AI. A panel made up of local tech businesses will be established in each region to decide which applications have merit, with the necessary checks then done centrally by Innovate UK.

We welcome the TechFirst package as we have consistently called for better use of existing resources and training programs to develop AI skills in the workforce. Businesses already offer a wide variety of online and in-person training, from basic digital skills right through to courses on the latest technological developments. These efforts need to be unified to boost learners’ confidence in investing their time. techUK has long urged the government to build on the successful Skills Toolkit launched in 2020, creating an updated version that helps people across all sectors access digital job opportunities and relevant training. Many techUK members’ courses have been featured, but now the focus must shift from basic digital skills to advanced, stackable qualifications that lead to workplace-ready capabilities.

TechFirst builds on the success of the CyberFirst programme, which has already helped hundreds of thousands of young people gain cyber security skills. techUK has worked closely with government to ensure the CyberFirst scheme delivered on its aim to encourage more young people to consider a career in cybersecurity and build their relevant skills.

Ahead of today’s announcement, techUK hosted a roundtable with Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and our members on the key principles that underpin the new TechFirst initiative, and provided input to shape a programme that can tackle skills gaps and help people and businesses capitalise on the transformative benefits of AI. It is essential that SMEs are represented and actively integrated into the development of this skills package.

techUK is actively engaging with the government on skills and labour market challenges. Please get in touch to find out more.

Nimmi Patel

Nimmi Patel

Head of Skills, Talent and Diversity, techUK

Julian David OBE

Julian David OBE

CEO, techUK

Margherita Certo

Margherita Certo

Head of Press and Media, techUK

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techUK work with our members to signpost the opportunity of digital jobs and ensure these opportunities are open to people of diverse backgrounds. We strive to help our members attract, recruit, and retain a diverse workforce, whilst showcasing their work on workplace innovation. Visit the programme page here.

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To make sure that the UK is a world-leading digital economy that works for everyone, it is crucial that people have the digital skills needed for life and work. Rapid digitalisation is creating surging demand for digital skills across the economy and the current domestic skills pipeline cannot keep up. Digitalisation is also leading to rapid changes in the labour market that means some traditional roles are being displaced. There is an urgent need to better match the demand and supply.

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