Did you know the UK government will teach you and your team AI for free? Since January 2026, every adult in the UK can take short, free AI courses through the government's AI Skills Hub, and finish with a virtual badge you can put on a CV or share on social media. Some courses take as little as 20 minutes. If you run a small business and have been meaning to "get to grips with AI" for months, this is the cheapest way we know to start, and the part most people skip is choosing the right course. So here are the five things to look for before you click.
What the government is actually offering
On 28 January 2026 the government announced that its AI training programme was expanding, with the aim of giving 10 million workers key AI skills by 2030. Every adult in the UK is eligible to take the free courses. They are short, industry-developed and checked against a benchmark set by Skills England, called the AI foundation skills for work benchmark. Amazon, Google and Microsoft are among the companies that helped build the courses.
Skills England explains the thinking in its launch blog post: its research found poor understanding of what AI skills even mean among employers, especially small and medium-sized businesses. Anyone who completes a course that meets the benchmark receives a virtual AI foundations badge. Course lengths vary a lot, from about 20 minutes to several hours depending on the course, and the catalogue is large, so you will want a way to choose.
For a small business that matters. You do not need a training budget, a day out of the diary or a technical background. You need a laptop, a quiet 20 minutes and a real task to practise on, which is exactly the kind of low-risk first step we would suggest to any owner who feels behind on AI.
Five things to look for in a free AI course
1. A length that fits your week
Do not start with the nine-hour option. Pick something you can finish in one sitting, ideally the same day you open the page. A finished 20-minute course beats an abandoned half-day one, and you can always take a longer one next.
2. A job you do every week
Choose the course that sits closest to a task you already repeat: writing customer emails, drafting quotes, summarising notes, or answering the same enquiries. If you can try the lesson on your own work while you watch, it sticks. If it is all theory, it will not.
3. Who built it
Courses built by a software company will naturally teach that company's tools. That is not a problem, but it is worth knowing. If you already use Google Workspace, a Google-built course is the obvious fit. If your business runs on Microsoft 365, look for the Microsoft one. Taking one course from each of two providers gives you a fairer picture than a single sales view of the world.
4. A benchmark and a badge
Look for the courses marked as meeting the Skills England benchmark, because those are the ones that earn the virtual AI foundations badge. A badge will not change how your business runs, but it is a simple, shareable way to show a customer, a client or a new member of staff that the basics are covered.
5. Something you can use the same day
Before you start, write down one thing you want to be able to do by the end, for example "draft a first reply to a customer enquiry in two minutes". When the course finishes, do that thing immediately on a real task. The knowledge fades quickly if you wait a week.
What it could be worth to you
Here is an illustration, not a promise. Say a course takes 20 minutes and teaches you one technique that trims 10 minutes from a job you do once a week. On those assumptions the course pays back its time in two weeks, and across a year that is about 8 hours back (10 minutes x 52 weeks = 520 minutes). Teach the same technique to two colleagues and the numbers scale with them. Your own figures will differ, so use your own repeated job and your own timings.
What a short course will not do
A 20-minute course is a starting point. It will explain the vocabulary, show you what the tools can do, and give you something to try. It will not build your business processes for you, and it will not tell you which tool suits your particular firm. That is the point where most owners want a second pair of eyes, and where we come in. We have not taken these courses ourselves, so read the course descriptions on the hub before you commit, and check the current catalogue, because courses and details can change.
Your five-minute start
- Search for the government's AI Skills Hub and make sure you land on the official page.
- Register (the programme describes sign-up as quick) and filter for the shortest courses.
- Pick one that matches a job you repeat each week, and note which company built it.
- Write down the one thing you want to do afterwards.
- Finish the course, claim the badge, and use what you learned on a real task the same day.
If you would like help turning what you learn into something that actually saves your business time, we are happy to talk it through. Which job in your week would you most like AI to take off your hands?
