Innovate UK-funded Frontier Fellowship opens 250 AI training places for women

The free 12-week program will combine AI training, live SME projects, and career support for eligible women in London and North West England

The Frontier Fellowship will combine four weeks of AI training, a four-week live SME project, and four weeks of career support for selected participants

Applications have opened for the Frontier Fellowship, a government-backed program offering 250 women in England training and live business experience aimed at preparing them for work as AI Deployment Consultants.

The 12-week program is delivered by Girls Talk Corporation and Enterprise4all and funded by Innovate UK under the UK Government's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Two cohorts are due to begin in October and November 2026.

It is aimed specifically at women aged 18 and over who live in London or North West England and are unemployed, returning to work, or in employment with insufficient hours or limited progression. Applicants cannot be in full-time education.

A degree, technology background, and previous experience using AI tools are not required.

"We are not looking for experience. We are looking for potential," the Fellowship states.

Applicants first complete an online form, with no CV required, followed by an approximately ten-minute assessment based on eight scenarios. Shortlisted candidates then complete a 45-minute case study after receiving a briefing document 90 minutes beforehand.

No technical knowledge is required for the case study, according to the program, which says: "We're interested in how you think, not a polished answer."

Four weeks of AI training, then a live SME project

The first four weeks cover tools including Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and ChatGPT, alongside workflow building and business process mapping. Participants are trained to identify potential uses of AI within an organization and design workflows around them.

The program then moves away from classroom-based training.

During weeks five to eight, Fellows work in teams of four or five on a four-week project for a UK small or medium-sized enterprise (SME). Each assignment has a defined scope, named client, weekly milestones, and a final deliverable.

The businesses can select projects from eight planned types of AI deployment work across sales, finance and operations, human resources, and marketing. Examples include pipeline automation, proposal generation, month-end reporting, recruitment workflows, onboarding knowledge bases, content systems, and customer research synthesis.

SMEs can also propose their own projects at a matching event. Fellows will rank their preferred projects, with teams then allocated based on fit.

Placement hosts do not pay for the four-week project. In return, they must provide a named project lead for at least four hours each week, access to the relevant systems and data, and an on-site, remote, or hybrid working environment.

The Fellowship says businesses can subsequently discuss employing individual Fellows permanently or contracting them for further project work.

Career support completes the 12 weeks

The final four weeks focus on employment, including interview coaching, CV preparation, confidence-building, employer introductions, and Insight Days with corporate partners. Graduates are also offered six months of continued support through an alumni network.

The program describes itself as "placement-first" and positions the Fellowship as a route into paid AI Deployment Consultant roles. Its published structure guarantees training and a live four-week business project for participants who progress through the program, but does not state that every Fellow is guaranteed permanent employment at the end of the 12 weeks.

Girls Talk and Enterprise4all bring different parts of the delivery model. Girls Talk says its community includes more than 60,000 women across the UK, Europe, and Africa and cites an independently assessed 80 percent sustained job outcome rate from previous programs. Enterprise4all says it has helped more than 5,000 SMEs, solo entrepreneurs, and micro-businesses through its AI and digital skills work.

The Fellowship is funded through Innovate UK's TechLocal program, which is intended to connect local talent with technology jobs across England.

Applications are open during August 2026. Successful applicants will be allocated to one of the October or November cohorts, and the program says support with equipment or internet access is available where required.