BT has more than 1,000 people learning data and AI inside their own jobs

There are two ways to teach a workforce something new. You can pull people out of their jobs for a course and hope it sticks when they get back. Or you can make the job itself the classroom and accept that it will take longer. Apprenticeships are the second kind, and they are having a moment again because of AI.

BT Group now has more than 1,000 colleagues on data and AI apprenticeships through its partnership with Multiverse. Laura Pocock, Director of People and Culture at BT Business, has championed the programme from the start. The thousand mark was announced in late October, with two apprentices put forward as examples.

What changed in the work

Zion Aklilu used what she learned to take a sales contract process from days to minutes. Zach built visual dashboards that colleagues now use to make decisions across the business. Pocock's framing was about the work rather than the headcount: less time on process, more time with customers.

Two examples out of a thousand is a small sample, and nobody has published what the other 998 have built. I would still take two concrete process changes over a completion rate any day. A contract that moves in minutes is something a sales director can feel on a Monday.

Why apprenticeships

The model forces the learning back into the role. People keep doing their jobs while they learn, so the test of the skill is whether something in their own job got faster or better. That is a higher bar than a quiz at the end of a module. It also takes a year, which is exactly why most organisations do not do it.

In the UK the apprenticeship levy means a large employer is paying for this capability either way, so the real decision is whether to point that money at AI and data or let it sit in older programmes. BT has made its choice.

What this means for L&D

If you are building an AI capability plan, look at how much of it happens inside the work rather than next to it. Short sessions still matter for awareness and safety. But the gains BT is pointing at came from people who had months to apply a skill to a process they owned. That is the logic behind running AI design sprints on a team's real workflow rather than a sample one.

The question I would ask BT is the one every programme like this has to answer eventually. When an apprentice cuts a process from days to minutes, who redesigns the role around the time that comes back?

Sources: Laura Pocock on LinkedIn, October 2026. Multiverse on LinkedIn, October 2026.