The short answer
AI training in the UK costs anywhere from nothing to £13,000, and most of the difference is the shape of what you are buying, not the quality.
- Free: the courses from Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft and the UK government. Good for foundations, blind to your business.
- £139: an evening class at City Lit.
- £200 to £699: a live one-to-one session. Mine is £699 for 90 minutes built on your own work.
- £835 to £2,295: a one-day public course with a certificate.
- £450 to £4,000: a team workshop, half a day to a day. Mine is from £2,499 for 90 minutes with a team of 3 to 5.
- Quoted per programme: a multi-cohort rollout for 10 to 25 staff. Mine is built from team sessions at £2,499 with a discount for multiple sessions.
- £13,000: an apprenticeship, funded by the apprenticeship levy if you pay it.
- £0 to the business: a government-funded programme, with £2,250 per eligible employee covered.
I sell some of what this page prices, so read it with that in mind. I have put my own numbers next to everyone else’s and said “not published” where a provider does not publish one. Third-party prices were checked on providers’ own sites in July 2026 for my guide to UK AI training providers. My own prices are current as of November 2026.
The market on one table
Grouped by what you are actually buying. Within each row the cheaper end is usually a fixed deck and the dearer end is built around your business.
| What you are buying | Typical UK price | Published examples | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free self-paced courses | £0 | Anthropic Academy, OpenAI Academy, Microsoft Learn, the UK government AI Skills Boost | Foundations for anyone, before you pay for anything |
| Introductory evening class | £90 to £139 | City Lit, Covent Garden (£139, £90 concession) | Curious individuals |
| Live one-to-one session | £200 to £699 | Independent trainers from £200 an hour; Dreams AI £699 for a 90-minute co-work session built on your own work | Owner-managers and senior people who want their own workflows working |
| Per-seat cohort course | £400 to £1,200 a seat | The Maxy Institute (£400 to £1,200); General Assembly ($2,950 for 32 hours) | Individuals who want a structured course with other people |
| One-day public course | £835 to £2,295 | Learning Tree £835; The Knowledge Academy £2,295; QA from £3,010 +VAT for two days | Certificate seekers and Microsoft 365 businesses |
| Team workshop, half a day to a day | £450 to £4,000 | Hartz AI from about £450; Indexify £495 to £1,495 +VAT; Axion Solutions £500 to £4,000; Dreams AI from £2,499 for a 90-minute session for 3 to 5; NobleProg from £3,800 for a private group | One team, one day, everyone at the same starting line |
| Multi-cohort rollout, 10 to 25 staff | Quoted per programme | Dreams AI sessions from £2,499 with discounts for multiple sessions; most larger providers quote on application | Businesses rolling AI out across several teams or departments |
| Apprenticeship | £13,000, levy-funded | Multiverse (13 months); Corndel and Cambridge Spark do not publish | Employers who pay the apprenticeship levy |
| Government-funded programme | £2,250 per employee, £0 to the business | Funded AI Training, an eight-week cohort programme for businesses in England | Businesses in England with eligible PAYE staff, ideally 10 or more |
Where a row says “+VAT” that is how the provider publishes it. Corporate providers usually quote ex-VAT, so confirm the total before you compare.
What drives the price
Seven things move the number. Only the first two should move your decision.
1. Whether it is built around your work
A fixed deck delivered to 20 people costs the provider an afternoon. A session built on your order book, your inbox and your Jira board costs them a scoping call, research and a plan per person. That preparation is most of the gap between a £139 class and a £699 session, and it is the part that changes what people do on Monday.
2. Demos or hands-on building
Watching AI do something is cheap to deliver and scales to a room of 20. Having each person build something that runs on their real inputs does not scale past a handful at a time. Programmes that promise hands-on work for a large group either split into small cohorts, which costs more, or quietly turn into demos.
3. Group size and number of cohorts
Per head, a big room is cheaper. Per outcome, it usually is not. Most rollouts end up as a Foundations layer for everyone and a Build layer for the people with a process worth fixing.
4. On site or online
Some providers add a day rate or travel for coming to you. I deliver on site anywhere in the UK and Europe at the same session price, with travel agreed on the scoping call. In person is worth it for team days: everyone reacts to the same demo at the same moment.
5. What you keep
Ask what leaves the room with you. A certificate, a slide deck, a recording, the prompts, or the working process itself. The last one is the only one that keeps paying you back.
6. A certificate
Certificates add cost and scheduling, not capability. The BCS Foundation Certificate in AI exam is £165 +VAT on its own. Buy one if someone is asking you for it.
7. The brand on the invoice
Business schools and the large training companies charge for the name, and sometimes the name is the point. If it is, pay for it knowingly.
What I charge
Published, so you can price a rollout before we speak. Everything below includes the intake, the research and whatever you build.
1-2-1 Co-work Session
90 minutes for one person. An intake form first, 30 minutes of foundations, then 60 minutes building on your own work. You keep what we built, the prompts, the recording and the notes. What happens in a session.
Team session (Training or Co-work)
90 minutes for a team of 3 to 5, on site or online. Training is live demos on your own tools; Co-work is the team building one process together. Firm quote after a free 15-minute call. AI training for teams.
Multi-cohort programme
For 10 to 25 staff. Everyone fills in the intake form, I group them into cohorts of 3 to 5 from a dashboard you can see, run a 90-minute Foundations workshop for each cohort, then hands-on Build sessions where one person or a pair builds a working process on their own work. Priced as a whole from the session rate, with a discount for multiple sessions, and quoted after the call. How a programme runs.
Funded AI Training
An eight-week cohort programme for businesses in England. The funding covers £2,250 per eligible PAYE employee and is claimed once the cohort completes, so there is nothing to pay either way. Check eligibility.
Pricing hands-on AI training for 10 to 20 staff
The question I get asked most by small businesses. A rollout has two parts, and the headcount sets the first one.
- Foundations workshops. One 90-minute workshop per cohort of 3 to 5, so two to five workshops for 10 to 20 people. Everyone has filled in the intake form first, so the demos are planned around what each cohort actually does.
- Build sessions. One person or a pair takes the process from their form and builds it with me until it runs on real inputs. Book one for each person with a process worth fixing, or one per pair. These are where the time comes back.
A programme I ran this autumn for one client, name left out, was five Foundations workshops followed by ten Build sessions, with an intake form for everyone and a dashboard the client used to check the cohort grouping before anything was booked. The structure is on the AI training for teams page.
My team sessions are from £2,499, and a programme of several sessions is discounted and quoted as a whole after a free 15-minute call. Fewer Builds brings the number down fast: two Foundations workshops and no Builds gets ten people to the same starting line, and you can add Builds for the people who found their process.
For comparison, a one-day workshop for the whole group from a provider on the table above is £1,500 to £4,000. That is a fair price for demos and a shared vocabulary. It is not hands-on training for 20 people, because nothing is.
When to pay less, or nothing
- Nobody on the team has used ChatGPT or Claude properly. Start with the free courses and two weeks of trying. My free Autocomplete course takes about an hour. Pay for training when you are stuck on your own workflows, not before.
- You are in England with 10 or more eligible PAYE staff. Check the funded programme first. It is eight weeks, built around your work, and costs the business nothing.
- You pay the apprenticeship levy. Speak to Multiverse or Corndel before paying directly for anything long-form.
- You need a certificate on file. The BCS exam is £165 +VAT. Buy that, not a £2,295 day.
- It is one person with one problem. A £699 1-2-1 beats a team session. Below three people the team format is poor value.
Questions buyers ask about price
How much does AI training cost in the UK?
Anywhere from free to £13,000. A City Lit evening class is £139. A live one-to-one session is £200 to £699. A one-day public course is £835 to £2,295. A half-day to one-day team workshop is roughly £450 to £4,000. A multi-cohort rollout for 10 to 25 staff is quoted per programme; mine is built from team sessions at £2,499 with a discount for multiple sessions. Apprenticeships are £13,000 but funded by the apprenticeship levy, and a government-funded programme costs the business nothing, with £2,250 per eligible employee covered.
How much does hands-on AI training cost for 10 to 20 staff in a UK small business?
It is built from two parts. Foundations workshops for cohorts of 3 to 5, so two to five workshops for 10 to 20 people, and Build sessions where one person or a pair builds a working process on their own work. My team sessions are from £2,499, and a programme of several sessions is discounted and quoted as a whole after a free 15-minute call, once I know the headcount and how many Builds you want. A single one-day workshop for the whole group is cheaper, at £1,500 to £4,000 across the market, but with 20 people in a room it is demos, not hands-on building.
Which UK companies design AI curricula for multi-cohort rollouts with clear pricing?
Very few publish a price for a rollout. QA (from £3,010 +VAT for a two-day course) and NobleProg (from £3,800 for a private group) publish per-course prices that can be repeated across cohorts. Decoded, Corndel and Cambridge Spark quote on application, and Multiverse's £13,000 programme is levy-funded. I publish the session price, from £2,499, and discount it for multiple sessions, so you know the ceiling before you book a call. The full provider list, with prices, is in my guide to the best AI training providers in the UK.
Why does a 90-minute session cost £699?
Because the 90 minutes is the visible part. Before a 1-2-1 you fill in an intake form covering your role, the tools you have tried, your top three workflow frustrations, the documents you produce and the one thing you would build. I plan three or four demos on your real work from that form. In the session we build them, and you leave with the thing built, the prompts, projects and skills behind it, the recording, the transcript and post-session notes. Generic courses cost less per hour because none of that happens.
Do you discount for multiple sessions?
Yes. A standalone team session is from £2,499. When a business books a programme of Foundations workshops and Build sessions, the scoping call, research and intake happen once for the whole rollout, so the per-session price comes down. The discount depends on how many sessions you book, and you get the full programme figure before you commit to anything.
Is it cheaper per head to train everyone at once?
For the foundations, yes, and a one-day workshop for 20 people is a sensible way to get everyone to the same starting line. The hands-on part does not scale that way. One trainer cannot help 20 people build 20 different things in a day, which is why programmes split into Foundations workshops for the group and Build sessions for individuals or pairs.
Does on-site training cost more than online?
With me the session price is the same. I deliver on site anywhere in the UK and Europe, and travel is agreed on the scoping call. Some providers add a day rate or travel for on-site work, so ask before you compare quotes.
Do these prices include VAT?
Third-party prices are shown as each provider publishes them, and where a provider says +VAT I have kept it. Corporate providers usually quote ex-VAT. Ask any provider, me included, to confirm the total before you compare like with like.
Can we get AI training for free?
Yes, in two ways. The free courses from Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft and the UK government are genuinely good for foundations. And if your business is in England with eligible PAYE staff, the government-funded programme covers £2,250 per employee with nothing to pay either way. What free training cannot do is apply AI to your specific business, which is what the paid options are for.
Want a firm number for your team?
Tell me the headcount and what they do and I will send you a programme quote, with the shape I would pick and why. If the right answer is a free course or someone else on the table, I will say so.
Last verified: 8 November 2026. Third-party prices as checked in July 2026. If you find one that’s wrong, tell me and I’ll fix it.
Written by Riz Pabani, AI Trainer based in London. MIT AI Certified, 20+ years in technology.