What role should government and industry play in developing AI skills?
Sue Daley OBE, techUK: The government made a great announcement in June about working with industry to train 7.5 million people in AI in 2025. That’ s a really powerful goal, but the question is how we make that happen. Government’ s role is being an enabler.
There’ s obviously curriculum changes: AI is going to be introduced into the curriculum. There’ s something around apprenticeships, and how those funds could be used towards upskilling and retraining.
From an industry point of view, there need to be internal pathways within organisations to develop AI skills. I think there’ s also something about industry’ s role as a recruiter: how do we position these new roles so that we can get people from diverse regions and backgrounds across the UK into our sector?
Vishaal Gupta, Pearson: Our research shows that in the UK alone, because of lack of skills, the UK economy is losing about £ 96 billion a year. That happens because as you come out of college, you’ re not ready for work.
168 January 2026