Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the value for money of Government-funded AI training courses.

The government is committed to building a digitally skilled workforce to support long-term economic growth, drive innovation and expand individual opportunity. As part of this ambition, DSIT has launched the AI Skills Boost campaign to upskill 10 million workers in AI skills by 2030, and our industry partners deliver these courses at no cost to government. Since June 2025, this initiative has delivered more than 1 million free AI training courses to workers across the UK, and the Government continues to track delivery.

The government runs monitoring & evaluation for all government-funded AI training courses to track participation and assess the delivery and impact of funded programmes. This includes the AI and Data Science Conversion Courses, the Flexible AI Upskilling Fund pilot, and several digital apprenticeships and Skills Bootcamps that offer AI-related training courses. Given the nascency of the sector, monitoring and evaluation of most of these programmes is currently ongoing. Data on participation and completion rates for these apprenticeships and Skills Bootcamps can be found on the Explore Education Statistics GOV.UK Service.