School leavers in Oldham with few or no qualifications will be offered free summer AI bootcamps from this year, under plans set out by the science and technology secretary, Liz Kendall. The scheme begins in the North West before being rolled out across the country next year, and Oldham is named alongside Blackpool, Blackburn and Wigan as one of the towns taking part.

Those who complete the course will be guaranteed an apprenticeship, with companies including JD Sports and BAE Systems involved. Kendall announced the plan in a speech to the AI Adoption Summit at the Science Museum in London on Monday 8 June, 2026, during London Tech Week.

The bootcamps are part of what the government calls its initial AI adoption package, backed by more than £200m. Other measures include expanding the Bridge AI scheme to £100m to match British companies with British AI, along with support on skills and practical help, and £5m for each AI Growth Zone to help local businesses adopt AI and train local workers.

Kendall said the government's goal, first set out in January, is to make Britain the fastest adopting AI country in the G7. She argued that the countries which gain most from each wave of new general purpose technology are not those that make the first discovery but those that adopt it most widely. She said free AI skills training had delivered 1.7 million courses as of April, towards a target of upskilling 10 million people by 2030, with two million of those to be workers in small and medium sized businesses.

On jobs, she acknowledged public concern. A clear majority of the public think AI will reduce more jobs than it creates or enhances, she said, and only 1 in 10 young people believe its benefits will be shared fairly across society. Kendall said workers "should have a say over how AI is implemented in their workforce", and that change should be done with them rather than to them.

A new Early Careers Jobs Alliance, backed by an initial £20m, will be co-chaired by Katie Gallagher, head of Manchester Digital and the government's AI sector champion, and Mike Clancy of the Prospect trade union. It will examine how entry-level work is changing and how entry-level roles should be redesigned, starting with digital and tech before expanding to other industrial strategy sectors, with a first report due this autumn.

Separately, a £187m Tech First scheme aims to help 1 million young people get the skills they need, with a target that 40% will be in the most disadvantaged schools, amounting to 400,000 pupils. The government also cited its £11m AI Assurance Fund and the new Regulatory Innovation Office, which it says is speeding up work on projects such as a drone blood delivery service at Guy's and St Thomas's hospital and street sweeping robots in Milton Keynes.

Kendall published reports from AI champions across eight priority sectors and said the government would "seriously consider" their proposals. A national prize for the best examples of pro-worker AI adoption will be chaired by the Nobel economist Simon Johnson.