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AI Skills Boost: explainer

Published 28 January 2026

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About the AI Skills Boost programme

AI Skills Boost is a government-industry initiative to improve UK workforce readiness by upskilling 10 million UK workers in AI skills by 2030, which was announced by the Prime Minister in June 2025 at London Tech Week. The programme focuses on leveraging the reach and high quality training provision of government and industry partners to equip the UK workforce with AI skills to support a range of outcomes, including:

  • supporting workers to adapt and thrive in a workplace where AI tools are increasingly widespread
  • targeting support towards worker groups and cohorts that most require it
  • facilitating widespread uptake of AI across the economy to support productivity and growth

What has the programme achieved so far?

1,001,147 AI training courses have been completed according to course completion data shared with DSIT by industry partners in January 2026. This figure covers all AI skills courses delivered by partners since June 2025, from introductory AI literacy to advanced training in areas like data science and machine learning engineering, for both external learners (customers, clients, platform users) and internal learners (partner employees). The 11 industry partners involved in delivering these courses consist of Accenture, Amazon, BT, Barclays, IBM, Google, Intuit, Microsoft, SAS, Sage, and Salesforce, and the overall course completion figure includes courses delivered through the government’s One Big Thing initiative in 2025. Specific partner or course-level breakdowns of course completion are not shareable due to commercial sensitivity. 

What is the potential economic impact of the programme? 

The programme has significant potential to make upskilled workers more productive and increase earnings. For example, research from the IMF indicates that AI skills in the UK are associated with wage premiums of about 7.5–8 percent within occupations,[footnote 1] and more broadly, AI use is associated with substantial productivity gains.[footnote 2] If we cautiously assume that the training can unlock an additional 1% in output for the upskilled workers, and the ambition to train 10 million workers is met, this would be equivalent to over £7.5 billion higher GVA per annum. This is calculated by multiplying average worker GVA (~£77,000 in 2024)[footnote 3] by the number of workers in scope of the programme by 2030 (10 million), and modelling a 1% increase in value added. However, this figure is highly uncertain, and we will monitor the programme to more accurately measure economic returns. 

What is the potential impact of AI on UK productivity? 

The OECD estimates that AI adoption could add 0.4 to 1.3 percentage points to the UK’s annual labour productivity growth over the next decade.[footnote 4] The range in productivity uplift is informed by the adoption rate scenario (based on historic technology adoption rates) and whether complimentary software is developed (no significant uplift in AI capabilities is assumed).  

DSIT has undertaken additional analysis to model this impact in GVA terms

  1. Firstly, we model an adoption curve for each adoption scenario (slow, medium and rapid), using a constant multiplying factor that provides a compounding adoption curve from initial 2024 adoption in the paper (5%) to adoption in 2034 (30%, 47%, 60%),[footnote 5] see worked example below.

  2. Next, we use the adoption rate calculated above as an adoption adjustment. We find this by dividing the adoption rate in a given year by the adoption in the final year (Equation 2).

  3. Thirdly, using the OECD’s estimated improved annual average productivity growth rates (0.39, 0.97, 1.27), we calculate the total productivity uplift in 10 years, reaching 4.0pp, 10.1pp and 13.5pp in 2034 (see Equation 3).

  4. We then apply the adoption adjustment to the total productivity uplift to obtain an adoption-adjusted productivity uplift in each year (see Equation 4).
      

  5. As a final step, the percentage point uplift calculated above is applied to forecasted GVA (developed using March 2025 OBR GDP growth forecasts[footnote 6] and 2024 GVA[footnote 7]). The calculated difference in GVA constitutes the productivity benefits of AI adoption.
      

We find the estimated productivity growth is equivalent to adding between £55-140 billion to UK GVA in 2030. A worked example for the medium scenario is show below. This estimate is highly uncertain, and DSIT will update this analysis as new evidence emerges. 

Worked Example (medium scenario for year 2030)

Equation 1

Adoptionx = Adoption0 * (Adoption10 / Adoption0)X/10

Adoption2030 = 5.0% * (47.0% / 5.0%)6/10 = 19.2%

Equation 2

Adoption Adjustmentx = Adoptionx / Adoption10

Adoption2030 / Adoption2034 = 19.2% / 47.0% = 40.8%

Equation 3

Productivity Upliftx = (1+ Productivity Uplift)x - 1 

Productivity Uplift2034= (1 + 0.97%)10 – 1 = 10.1%

Equation 4

Adoption Adjusted Productivity Upliftx = Productivity Uplift10 * Adoption Adjustmentx 

10.1% * 40.8% = 4.1%

Equation 5

GVA Upliftx = Adoption Adjusted Productivity Upliftx * Baseline GVAx

GVA Uplift2030(£ billion) = Adoption Adjusted Productivity Uplift2030 * Baseline GVA2030(£ billion)

4.1% * £2,840 billion[footnote 8] = £117 billion

  1. Bridging Skill Gaps for the Future: New Jobs Creation in the AI Age (SDN/2026/001) ↩

  2. 2509.15265 AI and jobs. A review of theory, estimates, and evidence ↩

  3. Output per worker, UK - Office for National Statistics ↩

  4. OECD June 2025 paper on macro productivity gains from AI in G7 economies ↩

  5. Ibid, Inferred from Figure 9. ↩

  6. 2024-2029: https://obr.uk/download/long-term-economic-determinants-march-2025-economic-and-fiscal-outlook/?tmstv=1758720565 and 2030-2025: https://obr.uk/download/long-term-economic-determinants-march-2025-economic-and-fiscal-outlook/?tmstv=1758720565 ↩

  7. www.ons.gov.uk ↩

  8. Baseline GDP in 2030 is calculated by multiplying 2024 GVA (£2,568,303 – see source above), by cumulative estimated GDP growth to 2030 from the OBR (~10.6%), see Footnote 6. ↩

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