{"id":623315,"date":"2026-09-13T10:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T10:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623315\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T10:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T10:46:10","slug":"really-helpful-the-ai-bootcamps-aimed-at-addressing-uk-youth-unemployment-ai-artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623315\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Really helpful\u2019: the AI bootcamps aimed at addressing UK youth unemployment | AI (artificial intelligence)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a youth centre opposite Preston bus station<\/a>, the UK government is trying to address two of the greatest challenges facing the national economy: AI and youth unemployment.<\/p>\n

The hope is that one will solve \u2013 rather than cause \u2013 the other. In a room at the recently opened Vault, a community hub in the Lancashire city, an \u201cAI bootcamp\u201d is under way \u2013 part of a trial in the north-west<\/a> to give 16- to 24-year-olds AI training.<\/p>\n

The bootcamp tutor is standing in front of a video screen and guiding the five attenders sitting around a long table on laptops through a task designed to emphasise the importance of glitch-free data in AI models.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes that make sense?\u201d he asks. The room nods.<\/p>\n

The three-week pilot boot camps are open to 70 young people who are classified as Neet or at risk of becoming so. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Everyone attending these sessions is either a 16- to 24-year-old not in education, employment or training \u2013 Neet, for short \u2013 or likely to join that bracket.<\/p>\n

Youth unemployment is a problem in the UK. Nearly a million young people are Neet \u2013 just over one in 10 people in that age group. The advent of AI, either a threat or boon to the job market depending on your perspective, is now another factor to take into consideration when tackling the youth joblessness crisis.<\/p>\n

Khudeija Rafique, who is attending the course, sees potential in the new tech. \u201cIt would be really helpful with whatever job I would like to go into,\u201d the 18-year-old from Burnley says.<\/p>\n

These taxpayer-funded bootcamps are a pilot scheme, open to 70 people who will undergo a three-week programme specially designed for Neets to learn how to build AI tools, understand how businesses use AI, and learn to use the technology responsibly. The retailer JD Sports, food company Heinz and IT firm Agilysys are among the partners offering AI apprenticeships specifically designed for the attenders to join at the end of the course.<\/p>\n

There are two types of apprenticeship available: one for aspiring content creators to become AI marketing specialists, another to join IT helpdesks that need AI expertise. If a boot-camp trainee gets an apprenticeship, they will be going to an organisation that wants these skills and has an AI-focused role to fill.<\/p>\n

\u2018This is an opportunity to bridge a gap, to improve productivity and bring AI into organisations,\u2019 says Lauren Monks. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an opportunity to bridge a gap, to improve productivity and bring AI into organisations,\u201d says Lauren Monks, an executive at IN4 Group, the company contracted to run the programme.<\/p>\n

Amid general concerns about the availability of entry-level jobs and whether AI is stifling that market, being on top of the technology can be an advantage if you\u2019re seeking your first job.<\/p>\n

This is common advice from graduate recruiters, but experts say it can apply to Neets as well, depending on what sector of the economy they are joining.<\/p>\n

Remy Simms, 17, is interested in applying for the content creator apprenticeship and says the Preston<\/a> course has \u201cchanged my opinion\u201d on AI. \u201cIt shows that you can work with AI and you don\u2019t have to work against it,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve got a better understanding of it and I know more about how it works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remy Simms, 17, says the Preston course has given him a \u2018better understanding\u2019 of AI. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Alan Milburn, a former Labour cabinet minister, warned in a recent report<\/a> that the country was \u201cat risk of a lost generation\u201d without government action on the Neet crisis. Milburn\u2019s prescription goes a lot further than AI bootcamps \u2013 he calls for reform of the welfare system, for instance \u2013 and his report points out that work programmes by successive governments have failed to answer the problem.<\/p>\n

Concerns about AI\u2019s impact on employment have focused on the graduate job market<\/a> so far, not on school leavers and non-graduates, amid expectations that it will be able to do the \u201cgrunt work\u201d associated with junior employees in areas such as banking, consulting and law.<\/p>\n

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The impact on non-graduate work was unclear, according to Dr Bouke Klein Teeselink, who is researching AI and the future of work at King\u2019s College London.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have really good insights into how AI affects the non-graduate market compared to the graduate market,\u201d he says, but suggests this scheme could help answer the puzzle of getting more young people into the labour market.<\/p>\n

The key test of the bootcamps and ensuing apprenticeships, Teeselink says, would be the thoroughness of the AI training and whether these newcomers made a real difference to their employers\u2019 productivity. \u201cI hope the policy will be rolled out in a way that allows the government to answer both those questions,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Hamid Muhammad-Asif, 16, says he would be happy with a content creator or IT helpdesk apprenticeship. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

So will the bootcamps make a difference to Neet numbers? Experts say there is no single cause of the crisis and any comprehensive solution must be multi-faceted.<\/p>\n

Chris Goulden, the deputy chief executive of the Youth Futures Organisation, a non-profit that researches how to help young people find employment, says he does not believe AI is a driver of Neet numbers. The country still needs to increase the amount of apprenticeships it offers, and guide children who are not on a pathway to university into vocations, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur sense is that AI is not driving the increase in Neets since the [Covid] pandemic,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s more to do with mental health issues and a general slowdown in the economy. But that\u2019s not to be complacent, because AI is doing new things every day and it\u2019s going to affect lots of jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goulden says if the \u201cfirst rung of the ladder\u201d is being taken away by AI, it is logical to give young people a foothold in the technology. \u201cTeaching young people to use AI is part of how we prepare them for the future,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In Preston, the bootcamp attenders are keen to take the next step.<\/p>\n

Asked whether he wants the content creator or the IT helpdesk apprenticeship, 16-year-old Hamid Muhammad-Asif, from Blackburn, says: \u201cI\u2019m happy with both.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a youth centre opposite Preston bus station, the UK government is trying to address two of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-623315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}