The Level 4 AI & Automation Practitioner (ST1512) teaches your team to build AI agents and automations with no-code tools: Copilot Studio, Power Automate, Make and Zapier. No programming and no prior technical background. Funding depends on levy status and the apprentice's age, and we confirm the exact position on the discovery call.
Yes, you can do a recognised AI apprenticeship without writing a single line of code. The Level 4 AI & Automation Practitioner (ST1512) is a non-coding standard by design. TESS apprentices build working AI agents and automation flows in no-code tools, are assessed against the same assessment plan as apprentices at any other provider, and Apprentices achieve a 72% distinction rate across TESS. From 1 August 2026 the government funds training and assessment up to the funding band maximum for apprentices aged 16 to 24. That applies to employers who do not pay the levy and to levy payers whose funds run out. Levy paying employers draw from their Growth and Skills Levy account first. For funds entering the account from August 2026, unused funds expire after 12 months. Earlier funds keep 24 months. For apprentices aged 25 and over, co-investment applies on new starts the levy does not cover. We will confirm your exact position on the discovery call. We never quote an unused levy balance we cannot see.
ST1512 was written as a non-coding standard on purpose. Choosing it is not settling for a lighter version of a technical apprenticeship. It is choosing the right tool for a different job.
The UK already has apprenticeship standards for software developers, data scientists and machine learning engineers. What it lacked, until Skills England approved the AI & Automation Practitioner, was a standard for everyone else: the people who own the business processes where AI actually pays for itself. The standard deliberately specifies no-code and low-code platforms throughout, because the skill being assessed is applying AI to real work, not writing software.
That is why the people who get the most from this programme are not aspiring developers. They are in operations, where process knowledge turns directly into automation; in HR, where onboarding, screening and people analytics are full of repeatable steps; in finance, where reconciliation and month-end reporting eat whole weeks; and in marketing, where content, campaign and reporting workflows run on rails that nobody has automated yet. These teams do not need another engineer. They need one of their own people who can see a process and rebuild it with AI inside.
You graduate thinking like a workflow designer, not an engineer. You map a process, find the steps where AI or automation removes work, build the fix with visual tools, test it on live data and put governance around it. The thinking is rigorous. The syntax is absent.
The headline skill is agentic AI: building AI agents that do real work, not just answer questions. In Copilot Studio your apprentice designs an agent that reads a request, checks it against your own documents, and takes an action, raising a ticket, updating a list, sending an approval, all without writing code. By month 4 every apprentice has a working agent running in their own organisation. That is the difference between using AI and building with it, and none of it needs a line of Python.
Every module ends with something running inside your own organisation. This is what that looks like in practice.
Build agents that answer policy questions, triage inbound requests and draft first responses, grounded in your organisation's own documents. You configure behaviour, knowledge sources and guardrails through an interface, not a codebase.
Connect the systems you already use: approvals that route themselves, reports that compile overnight, data that moves between platforms without copy-and-paste. Drag, drop, test, deploy.
Use Copilot to interrogate spreadsheets, build dashboards that flag exceptions, and turn monthly reporting from days of work into minutes. If you can write an Excel formula, you can do this.
Build prompt libraries your team actually reuses, and apply data protection and responsible AI practice so everything you ship is safe to scale beyond your own desk.
The fixed milestone: every apprentice ships a working AI agent into their workplace by month 4. Not a slide deck or a sandbox demo: a live build with a named owner and measurable hours saved. By the End-Point Assessment, that first agent is usually the oldest item in a portfolio of real automations.
Up to five qualifications are bundled inside the funded price:
The Coachy AI tutor, available 24/7 for every learner, is included.
This page answers the no-coding question. The detail lives on the programme pages.
Modules, EPA, qualifications, delivery options and the funding maths for the AI & Automation Practitioner Level 4.
The same ST1512 standard and the same EPA, delivered at a faster pace for experienced teams in a hurry.
Every TESS AI apprenticeship in one place, from Level 3 foundations to the Level 6 fellowship, side by side.
A 30-minute call is enough to map your roles to the right programme and check your levy position. No deck, no hard sell.
There is no typical 'tech person' on this programme, because it is not a tech programme. Cohorts are made up of people who are good at their jobs and tired of the repetitive parts.
No prior technical background is required, and most of our 10,000+ learners arrived without one. The honest entry bar is this: if you are comfortable writing an Excel formula, you have more than enough logical thinking for the programme. Everything tool-specific is taught from first principles, and the Coachy AI tutor is there around the clock when something does not click.
Want it framed for your function? See the tailored pages for HR, finance, operations, marketing and customer service.
Three honest descriptions. Pick the one that matches the job you actually need done.
12 months of delivery plus a 3-month End-Point Assessment with NQual, completed inside your existing job. Funding depends on levy status and the apprentice's age, and we confirm the exact position on the discovery call. You learn no-code AI and automation by building it for your own organisation, so the return starts before the programme ends: a working agent by month 4, a portfolio of live automations by the EPA. The right route when the goal is working AI in a business team, not a career change into software.
Typically 12 to 16 weeks of intensive Python or web development at £5,000 to £10,000, self-funded or employer-paid, and not levy-fundable. Genuinely good if you want to become a developer. For most business professionals it is the wrong tool: you learn syntax you will rarely use, practise on examples that are not your job, and finish without protected learning time, a recognised standard or an external assessment behind you.
A degree or a Level 6 apprenticeship gives the deepest foundation: real engineering, real machine learning theory, three or more years of work. It is the right call for someone building a career in ML engineering. It is overkill, and far too slow, for an operations manager who needs invoice processing automated this quarter.
For business teams, the no-code route wins on time-to-value, funding and fit: your people keep their roles, build on the process knowledge they already have, and ship their first agent within four months. If your team is technical and wants the coding path, we deliver that too: see the Data Analyst Level 4 or the AI & ML Fellowship Level 6.
No. The AI & Automation Practitioner Level 4 (ST1512) is a non-coding standard. Apprentices build everything with no-code and low-code tools such as Copilot Studio, Power Automate, Make and Zapier. There is no programming at any point in the curriculum or the End-Point Assessment.
No. Most learners join from operations, HR, finance, marketing and customer service roles with no technical history. If you are comfortable writing an Excel formula, you have all the grounding you need: logical thinking matters far more than software experience, and everything tool-specific is taught from scratch.
Yes. It is the same Skills England approved standard, ST1512, that every provider delivers, assessed against the same assessment plan. The grade on the certificate carries identical weight whether the builds behind it were coded or configured. Apprentices achieve a 72% distinction rate across TESS, nearly double the national distinction rate.
Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Studio, Power Automate, Make and Zapier for agents and automation; Copilot in Excel and Power BI for analysis; plus ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini for everyday AI work. The standard is vendor-neutral, so cohorts weight the toolkit towards the stack your organisation actually runs.
That is exactly who the programme is built for. We run closed cohorts for non-technical teams in HR, finance, operations, marketing and customer service, with worked examples grounded in their day-to-day work rather than generic tech scenarios.
Yes. Developers sometimes enrol to learn the business side of AI: agent design, governance, ROI cases and the workflow thinking that sits upstream of code. If your technical staff want a coding-first route instead, the Data Analyst Level 4 or the AI & ML Fellowship Level 6 are better fits.
Starting no-code closes no doors. Graduates who develop a technical appetite progress to the Level 6 AI & ML Fellowship, which does involve code, with their Level 4 portfolio and qualifications already banked. For most business professionals the no-code Level 4 is the right first rung, not a detour.
12 months of delivery plus a 3-month End-Point Assessment window with NQual, with an 8-month accelerated option for experienced teams. From 1 August 2026 the government funds training and assessment up to the funding band maximum for apprentices aged 16 to 24. That applies to employers who do not pay the levy and to levy payers whose funds run out. Levy paying employers draw from their Growth and Skills Levy account first. For funds entering the account from August 2026, unused funds expire after 12 months. Earlier funds keep 24 months. For apprentices aged 25 and over, co-investment applies on new starts the levy does not cover. We confirm the exact position on the discovery call.
Up to five, all inside the funded price: the BCS Foundation Certificate in AI, Microsoft AB-730 or Google AI Essentials, NCFE AI Prompt Mastery, NCFE Data and NCFE Cyber Security Practices, alongside the Level 4 apprenticeship certificate itself. The Coachy AI tutor is also included for every learner.
By month 4. Every apprentice ships a working AI agent into their own workplace as a fixed early milestone: a live build solving a real problem, not a sandbox exercise. From there the portfolio grows with automation flows and analysis builds through to the End-Point Assessment.
A 30-minute call: we map your roles to ST1512, check your levy position, and give you a straight answer either way.
Prefer to talk now? Call 0333 0523 003.
Last updated: 11 June 2026
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