UK Workers Expect AI as a Colleague, But Only 28% Have Had Training
The News
Research from SD Worx published July 21 found that 46% of UK employees expect AI to support them by sharing tasks, while a further 46% expect to continue carrying out most of their work themselves with limited AI involvement. Only 8% believe AI will perform the majority of their role. However, fewer than three in ten (28%) say they have attended AI-related training provided by their employer in the past year, and only 30% believe their organisation is helping them build the skills needed for an AI-enabled workplace. Just 31% say their employer is actively guiding them through the transition. The research also found that 71% of UK employees believe AI systems should be transparent in decision-making, while 54% trust their organisation to use AI fairly and ethically.
Why It Matters
The gap between employee expectation and employer action is where AI deployments go to die. If your recruiting team expects AI to handle parts of their workflow but hasn't been trained to use the tools you've already bought, the technology sits idle and the ROI case collapses. The 54% trust figure on fair AI use is also worth noting — it means nearly half your workforce isn't convinced you'll use AI ethically, which in a TA context translates to scepticism about AI-assisted screening and hiring decisions. That scepticism is a bigger adoption barrier than any feature gap.
Taking Action
All action is situated in your corporate context. These are starting points, not prescriptions — choose what fits.
Connect
Who to talk with in your enterprise
Your head of L&D: Ask what AI training has actually been delivered to TA teams in the past 12 months, and whether it covers tool-specific skills or just generic AI literacy. The SD Worx data suggests the gap is likely wider than you think. Your head of people analytics: The 54% trust figure is worth benchmarking internally — run a pulse survey on whether your own employees trust the organisation to use AI fairly in hiring decisions.
Inspect
What to take a closer look at
Check your AI training completion rates for TA-specific teams. If you can't find the data, that's the finding — you don't know who in your hiring pipeline has been trained to use AI tools responsibly, and that's an audit waiting to happen.
Reflect
What to think about more deeply
If 72% of employees think their human capabilities can't be replaced by AI, but only 28% have been trained to work alongside it, who exactly is supposed to be making the AI work — and what are they using as instructions?