AU0009 vs AU0010 vs AU0011 — which AI Leadership unit does your organisation actually need?
Skills England published three new Level 5 units on 21 April 2026 to replace the withdrawn AU0002. They look similar on paper. They're not. Here's a clear-headed picker.
Most L&D leaders we've spoken to in the past 72 hours have asked the same question: do we need one unit, two, or all three? The honest answer is "it depends on where you are right now". This guide gives you the simplest possible diagnostic.
If you'd rather skip the reading and answer seven questions instead, the 3-minute employer fit assessment does this calculation for you and tells you which units fit, plus whether a closed-cohort full pathway is worth the levy spend.
The three units side by side
The simplest picker (3 questions)
Forget the apprenticeship-standard wording for a moment. Just answer these three:
- Has your board approved AI investment? If not — AU0009 is your starting point.
- Do you have a written AI policy and a process for vendor sign-off? If not — AU0010 is yours.
- Have you tried to roll AI out and seen weak adoption? If yes — AU0011 is the one.
If your honest answer to two or three of these is "no", you have a stacked gap and you'll get more value running the units in sequence as a closed cohort than picking just one.
How they sequence in a closed cohort
If you're running all three as a closed cohort for a single senior team — which is where the levy economics genuinely shine — they sequence naturally:
- Weeks 1–3: AU0009. Senior team aligns on where AI creates value and what investment looks like. Output: a board-ready investment case the cohort actually believes in.
- Weeks 4–6: AU0010. Same cohort builds the governance scaffold around that investment — vendor selection, policy, risk, ethics. Output: a governance framework live in your organisation.
- Weeks 7–8: AU0011. Cohort plans the actual rollout — who, how, change management, adoption metrics. Output: a transformation plan with measurable milestones.
The reason this beats taking individual units in isolation: the same room of leaders carries the conversation across all three weeks. By week eight, they've made the strategy and the governance and the rollout plan together. Nobody hands work over a wall. Compare that with one leader doing AU0009 in isolation and trying to sell the result to a separate operations team a quarter later.
When you should NOT take all three
Three honest situations where stacking the full pathway is the wrong answer:
- You're a senior leader doing this for personal development with no organisational mandate. Pick the one that lines up with your role — use the learner unit picker for that.
- Your team is fewer than 8 senior leaders. Closed-cohort economics need critical mass. Below 8 you're better off sending individuals into separate cohorts or running a single targeted unit.
- You've already done extensive AI strategy work. Skip AU0009 and run AU0010 + AU0011 only. £1,500 from levy, ~5-6 weeks. Don't pay for content you've already covered.
The bottom line
The three units aren't interchangeable and they're not just "modules of AU0002". They genuinely answer different questions. Pick the one that matches your specific gap — or run all three as a closed cohort if you have 8+ leaders and a real AI rollout to do.
If you'd like an evidence-based read on which fits, take the 3-minute employer fit assessment. If you're an individual leader trying to work out what to ask your employer for, take the learner unit picker.
Two free 3-minute tools, no email required
Whichever side of the buying conversation you're on, get a tailored read in three minutes.