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One in Ten UK Workers Spend Full Day Each Week on AI Self-Study

ended 30. October 2025

Almost one in ten UK workers now dedicates an entire working day each week to AI upskilling according to Adobe's Future of Skills survey of 2003 UK respondents. 

Further education outlet, FE News reports 45% of hiring managers identify AI and automation as the most sought-after skills in new candidates, whilst one in three report a significant skills gap in precisely these areas

But here's what nobody's tracking: how many of those hours cover ethics, governance, or the ability to spot when a system's about to wreck a company's reputation? Research from MIT and Columbia University shows completion rate of self-paced online courses is just 5 to 15%. Enrolment doesn't equal effectiveness.

42% of workers prefer self-paced online courses, which sounds empowering but there are few, if any, lessons  on training material selection, guardrails, bias, and data protection. Silo learning helps master copilot usage, but it falls short in a company compliance setting. 

The result: capable tool users who can't explain what their AI just did or why it shouldn't have done it.

Government research confirms sectors face gaps in ethics and governance, with many firms prioritising getting AI systems to work over deeper understanding or critical oversight. Workers learn to accelerate adoption without learning how to audit systems or protect themselves when things go wrong.

Most AI training chases automation ROI first, treating ethics and governance as box-ticking exercises rather than the foundations of systems that won't land you in a commercial dispute, or worse, court.

You wouldn't hand someone lorry keys without teaching the Highway Code, but we're doing exactly that with AI systems that can damage brands, breach regulations, and expose sensitive data at scale.

We want your views:

  • If workers spend one day a week learning AI, how will businesses know if it's worth it? What should they measure?
  • What support do workers need when they're teaching themselves fast-changing technology that could create legal or business risks?
  • Should professional bodies make AI safety training compulsory, or should it stay optional?
  • How can workplaces make it safe for employees to say "I need to check if this AI is safe to use" without damaging their careers?
  • How can organisations help workers with different tech skill levels keep up as AI becomes central to their jobs?

5 responses from the Newspage community

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Colette Mason
AI Ethics Consultant at Clever Clogs AI
Adobe's Digital Academy deserves credit for aiming to augment human ability, especially in the creative industry where battle-weary artists fear replacement daily. Their focus on boosting human creativity rather than replacing it shows the right approach.

However, a lack of knowledge of quality LLM training, clear performance rules, robust processes, edge case testing, and human oversight, means AI can be ruinous.

The question isn't whether people can use AI tools, it's whether they can spot when those tools might cause legal, professional, or reputation problems for their employer. Accountability and compliance require different skills, and almost nobody's teaching them.

Professional bodies should make governance, model training and competency mandatory for their industries. Until 'I need to check if this AI strategy is safe to deploy' becomes standard practice rather than career-limiting honesty, we're training people to move faster toward problems they can't see coming.
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Mitali Deypurkaystha
AI Governance Strategist & CMO at AISensa
The UK’s flexible, pro-innovation approach over a one-size-fits-all approach works because it lets regulators apply principles like safety, transparency, fairness, accountability, contestability and redress within their own sectors. That agility has turned the UK into a global hub for AI innovation, and that’s worth protecting. But agility without guardrails is speed without sight. We risk creating fast systems with blind spots. When innovation outruns oversight, bias, explainability, data protection and accountability go unchecked until people are already harmed. We’re creating capable tool users who can’t explain what their AI just did. Flexibility is progress only if matched with protection. The middle ground is clear: immediate government funding for mandatory training on what those five principles actually mean in real workplaces. Otherwise, we’ll have a nation fluent in AI and automation but illiterate in accountability. That’s a risk no economy can afford.
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Kate Underwood
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training
Everyone’s shouting about AI skills, but no one’s asking if people are learning the right ones. You wouldn’t hand someone a van and say, “figure it out on the motorway,” but that’s what’s happening with AI.

Small businesses are most at risk. They don’t have compliance teams or PR firms to mop up a mistake. One bad prompt, one wrong upload, and you’ve got a data breach or a headline you didn’t need.

This rush to “upskill” sounds great until you realise most of it skips the basics: ethics, bias, accountability. We’re teaching people how to press go, not when to stop.

AI can be brilliant for small firms, but it shouldn’t come at the cost of common sense. Before we celebrate another skills initiative, maybe we ask if anyone’s learning how to keep out of trouble.
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Naina Clayton
Founder at Sandwoman Business Support
AI is here to stay unfortunately and employers need to embrace this. To ensure their staff remain compliant and understand how to use AI safely, the employer should partner with training providers or local colleges. They should ask for courses that have been vetted, are in plain language and will ensure everyone learning about AI is doing so successfully and safely.

If workers have different tech skills, have courses at a range of levels and maybe even utilise peers within the workspace who may have more advanced skills to help teach or support those with less advanced tech skills.

Employees need to be taught about ethical use and data privacy when using AI. They don't want to find information they have been putting into AI is company confidential and appears somewhere in some training manual or used by another AI company.
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Patricia McGirr
Founder at Repossession Rescue Network
Scrutiny and ethics are playing second fiddle to rapid implementation of AI. The real twist is that many employees are now using AI to replace the very skills they were hired for and employers seem to be turning a blind eye to the potential consequences when it goes wrong. Listing “AI expertise” on a CV has become almost essential, but too few understand the legal and ethical risk it carries. We’re letting people loose with systems they can’t fully explain, and calling it progress. The potential for catastrophic damage to businesses and reputations should not be understated. AI is a useful tool in the workplace, but it needs clear rules to guide its use and proliferation.