--- title: "How to get AI to help me get a job in AI" url: https://howtogetaito.com/help-me/get-a-job-in-ai/ published: 2026-09-26 updated: 2026-09-26 author: "Jack Stovell" author_profile: https://i.hilyt.it/jack publisher: "Adapt Progress Evolve" summary: "Work out which route into AI work fits you (engineer, data scientist, product manager, AI trainer, or the person in your current job who uses AI well), learn it with courses that are actually free, build a small public portfolio, tailor applications honestly, and tell real AI-training gig work from a recruitment scam." tools: ["ChatGPT","Claude","Gemini","Copilot","Kaggle","Microsoft Learn","fast.ai","Elements of AI","DeepLearning.AI","Coursera","GitHub","Work Hub","Outlier","DataAnnotation"] language: en-GB --- # How to get AI to help me get a job in AI > Work out which route into AI work fits you (engineer, data scientist, product manager, AI trainer, or the person in your current job who uses AI well), learn it with courses that are actually free, build a small public portfolio, tailor applications honestly, and tell real AI-training gig work from a recruitment scam. Published 2026-09-26 · Last updated 2026-09-26 · By Jack Stovell (https://i.hilyt.it/jack) · Canonical page: https://howtogetaito.com/help-me/get-a-job-in-ai/ ## What you'll be able to do Right, so you want a job in AI. Fair enough, plenty of people do, which is part of the problem. The job adverts are confusing, some courses want money before they've told you anything useful, and there's a lot of noise online telling you to "learn prompt engineering" as if that's a whole career on its own. This guide is about using AI itself to cut through that: work out which route actually fits you, find the free courses worth your time, build something you can point to, and tell a real opportunity from a scam before you hand over any details. By the end of this you'll know which AI roles exist in the UK and what they ask for. You'll have a shortlist of free courses that won't waste sixteen weeks of your evenings. You'll have started a small, public portfolio that proves you can do the thing rather than just talk about it. And you'll know how to spot the difference between legitimate AI-training gig work and someone trying to take your bank details "for onboarding". ## Before you start There isn't one job called "AI job". There are several, and they want different things. AI engineer (sometimes called machine learning engineer) usually needs a degree in AI, computer science, data science or maths, or an apprenticeship route: things like the AI and Automation Practitioner Level 4, Machine Learning Engineer Level 6, or AI Data Specialist Level 7. The National Careers Service gives an average salary of £35,000 for a starter, rising to £75,000 for someone experienced. Data scientist is a bit more open: a degree, a master's conversion course if your first degree was in something else entirely, an apprenticeship, applying directly with relevant experience, or the Civil Service Fast Stream. The same service puts that at £32,000 starter to £83,000 experienced. Then there's AI product manager, which is less about building models and more about deciding what gets built and why. There's AI trainer, which is work behind the scenes: writing hard questions, rating and ranking answers, and checking AI output for errors (more on this later, it's not glamorous but it's real). And there's a fifth route that nobody puts on a careers poster: being the person in your current job who's just good with AI. Marketing, admin, teaching, whatever you do now, the person who can use these tools properly, and check what they produce, is useful in almost any team. A certificate says you finished a course. It doesn't say you can do the job. Keep that in your head, because a lot of what follows depends on it. Don't pay for a certificate until you actually know a specific employer wants to see it. One more thing before you start clicking about: from 1 October 2026 the National Careers Service website is being renamed to "Get careers information and advice", same web address, so don't panic if the branding shifts under you. Face-to-face advice for adults in England is moving to the DWP Careers Service. There's also a newer government tool, the Work Hub at jobs.service.gov.uk, marked as experimental, which has an AI work assistant, a CV builder, and a find a job search all in one place. Worth a look, not worth relying on entirely yet given the experimental tag. ## Get set up Here's where the free learning actually lives, and which parts are actually free rather than "free trial, then we take your card details". Kaggle Learn is genuinely free, with certificates, and covers the basics well: Intro to Programming, Python, Intro to Machine Learning, Intro to SQL, Intro to AI Ethics. Good starting point if you've never coded. Microsoft Learn has an AI engineer career path, and Microsoft says its Learn training is free to anyone. Certification exams are a separate thing, so check the exam page for what it costs before you assume the whole route is free end to end. fast.ai's Practical Deep Learning for Coders is free, nine lessons of about ninety minutes each, and doesn't need special hardware. It does expect some coding already, so it's not a day-one course. Elements of AI, built by the University of Helsinki and MinnaLearn, has two parts. Introduction to AI is free with a free certificate and needs no maths or programming background at all, genuinely accessible. Building AI is also free to take, but the certificate for that one is optional and paid. DeepLearning.AI lets free members watch course videos, but the quizzes, labs, and certificate sit behind a paid Pro membership (there's a 7-day trial if you want to test it). And Google UK runs free live online sessions through grow.google/intl/uk, including ones aimed specifically at job searching. Google AI Essentials and Google's AI Professional Certificate are Coursera programmes, paid by monthly subscription (AI Essentials after a 7-day free trial; Coursera's pages say prices vary by country), and both mention financial aid you can apply for if the cost is the blocker. Check the Coursera page for the price where you live. If you're 19 or over and in England, also look at Skills Bootcamps: up to 16 weeks, most need no prior knowledge, and they come with a guaranteed job interview at the end. Find them through the National Careers Service course search under "Skills Bootcamp" as the course type, then apply through the provider directly. When this guide was checked, 18 of the 19 data-related bootcamps listed showed a cost of £0.00 (the other said to contact the provider), but check each listing yourself. Then the portfolio, which matters more than any certificate. GitHub has a free plan with unlimited public and private repositories, so put two or three small projects there, public, each with a short plain-English README saying what it does and what you learned. A public Kaggle notebook works the same way: proof someone can open and read. A small thing you built and can explain beats a stack of tutorial copies. And AI-training gig work, since the adverts for it are everywhere. Outlier, run by Scale AI, takes on independent contractors, needs at least an associate degree, ID, a CV and a LinkedIn profile, and has a 30 to 90 minute onboarding with skill screenings and ID checks. Rates vary by expertise, project and location, paid weekly, no visa sponsorship. DataAnnotation works on a similar contractor basis: a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience for general work, one Starter Assessment of about an hour that you can only sit once, ID checked through Persona, paid via PayPal, and it says it will never ask you for money. On both, projects come and go with what their customers need, and DataAnnotation says the quality of your work decides how much you're offered. The Handshake AI Fellowship, which you'll also see advertised, is for people based in the US only, so UK readers can skip it. This kind of work is real experience of how AI models get evaluated, and it can sit on a CV, but treat the pay as a top-up rather than a salary. ## Try it yourself This is where you actually get an AI assistant to do some of the sorting for you. Paste these into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Copilot and swap in your own details. ``` I work as [job] and know [skills]. Here are five routes into AI work: AI engineer, data scientist, AI product manager, AI trainer, using AI inside my current field. For each, tell me the honest gap between me and a first role, the first free course to take, and one project that would prove it. Do not invent salaries. ``` That last line matters. AI assistants will happily make up a salary figure that sounds plausible and isn't. Tell it not to. Once you've picked a route, get it to build you an actual schedule: ``` Set me a 12-week plan to learn [route] for [hours] a week using only free courses: Kaggle Learn, Microsoft Learn, fast.ai, Elements of AI. Each week: what to study, one thing to build, and how I will know I have learned it. ``` And when you're applying for something real: ``` Here is a job advert: [paste]. Here is my CV: [paste]. List the three requirements I meet best and the one I do not meet yet. Suggest honest rewording only, and a small portfolio project that would close the gap. ``` Honest rewording, not invented skills. If it suggests you claim experience you don't have, ignore that bit and tell it to try again without inventing anything. It will do this sometimes. Push back. ## Check the result Test the course claims yourself before you commit hours to something. If Kaggle Learn says a course gives a certificate, finish the shortest module first and check the certificate actually appears where it says it will. If DeepLearning.AI's free tier is meant to be videos-only, try to access a quiz and confirm it really does sit behind the paywall, rather than assuming. Check your portfolio links work by opening them in a private or incognito browser window. This sounds obvious but it catches the classic mistake: a GitHub repo set to private, or a Kaggle notebook you forgot to make public. If a recruiter clicks your link and hits a login wall, that's a dead application. And go through your CV or covering letter line by line and ask: is this true? Not "is this impressive" or "does this sound good", just true. If an AI tool suggested a phrase that stretches the truth, cut it. This is the bit that actually protects you later, in an interview, when someone asks you to explain the thing you claimed. ## If it doesn't work If you've sent out a stack of applications and heard nothing back, that's common, not a sign you're unemployable. Go smaller: an adjacent role, or an apprenticeship route rather than a straight-in engineering post. Foot in the door beats no door. If a course stalls, if you're three weeks in and dreading opening the laptop, switch to something shorter. There's no prize for finishing the wrong course. If you sign up to a gig platform and no work ever arrives, that happens too, work depends on demand and it fluctuates. Treat it as a possible top-up, never as income you can plan around. Now the important bit. Never paste your National Insurance number, passport details, or bank details into an AI assistant. Ever. If a platform needs your ID, upload it only through that platform's own verified site, never by emailing it to a recruiter or dropping it into a chat window. Report Fraud (formerly Action Fraud, 0300 123 2040) describes the usual pattern: fake recruiters asking for upfront fees for training, equipment, security checks or visas, or asking for your bank details "to set up your salary". Never pay to get a job. Check the company on Companies House, contact them through their official listed details, and be suspicious of anyone recruiting from a Gmail or Hotmail address rather than a company domain. If you've already paid something, ring your bank straight away, report it to Report Fraud, and warn the job site where you posted your CV. You can also feed a suspicious message straight to your AI assistant: ``` A recruiter sent me this message: [paste, no personal details]. List every warning sign of a job scam in it and what I should check before replying. ``` ## Questions people ask ### Which free courses should I use to get into AI work? Kaggle Learn is genuinely free with certificates and covers the basics. Microsoft Learn training is free to anyone, fast.ai's Practical Deep Learning for Coders is free but expects some coding, and Elements of AI's Introduction to AI is free with a free certificate and needs no maths or programming. ### What should I never paste into an AI assistant when job hunting? Never paste your National Insurance number, passport details or bank details into an AI assistant, ever. If a platform needs your ID, upload it only through that platform's own verified site, never by emailing it to a recruiter or dropping it into a chat window. ### Which AI assistant should I use for these prompts? Paste the prompts into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Copilot and swap in your own details. Add the line telling it not to invent salaries, because assistants will happily make up a plausible figure that isn't true. ### How do I check my portfolio links before applying? Open them in a private or incognito browser window. It catches the classic mistake: a GitHub repo set to private, or a Kaggle notebook you forgot to make public. If a recruiter hits a login wall, that's a dead application. ### How can I tell if an AI job advert is a scam? Report Fraud describes the usual pattern: fake recruiters asking upfront fees for training, equipment, security checks or visas, or wanting bank details "to set up your salary". Never pay to get a job, check the company on Companies House, and be suspicious of Gmail or Hotmail addresses. ## Keep exploring Once you've picked a route and started building something, the next steps sit in "[How to get AI to find and apply for jobs](https://howtogetaito.com/find/a-job/)" for the actual application grind, "[How to get AI to write my CV](https://howtogetaito.com/write/my-cv/)" for getting that document right, and "[How to get AI to teach me to code](https://howtogetaito.com/teach-me/to-code/)" if the technical side is where you're starting from scratch. When an interview lands, "[How to get AI to help me practise for an interview](https://howtogetaito.com/practise/for-an-interview/)" picks it up from there. ## Sources and review notes - National Careers Service — AI engineer: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/artificial-intelligence-ai-engineer - National Careers Service — data scientist: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/data-scientist - National Careers Service — the service is changing (1 October 2026): https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/service-is-changing - Work Hub (experimental): https://www.jobs.service.gov.uk/ - Skills for Careers — Skills Bootcamps: https://www.skillsforcareers.education.gov.uk/pages/training-choice/skills-bootcamp - National Careers Service — course search: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/find-a-course - Microsoft Learn — FAQ (training is free): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/support/faq - Microsoft Learn — AI engineer career path: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/career-paths/ai-engineer - Kaggle Learn: https://www.kaggle.com/learn - fast.ai — Practical Deep Learning for Coders: https://course.fast.ai/ - Elements of AI: https://www.elementsofai.com/ · certificates: https://www.elementsofai.com/faq/i-have-passed-an-elements-of-ai-course-where-is-my-certificate-2 - DeepLearning.AI — free vs Pro: https://info.deeplearning.ai/knowledge-base/what-do-i-get-with-the-deeplearning.ai-pro-membership-that-i-dont-get-for-free - Grow with Google UK — AI training: https://grow.google/intl/uk/courses-and-tools/?category=career&topic=ai - Coursera — Google AI Essentials: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/ai-essentials-google · Google AI Professional Certificate: https://www.coursera.org/google-certificates/google-ai - GitHub pricing: https://github.com/pricing - Outlier FAQ: https://outlier.ai/faq - DataAnnotation FAQ: https://www.dataannotation.tech/faqs - Handshake AI Fellowship: https://joinhandshake.com/ai/ - Report Fraud — recruitment scams: https://www.reportfraud.police.uk/recruitment-scams/ Review date: 26 September 2026 — every source above was opened and checked against the text on that date.