Templecombe, United Kingdom
2026-10-05
Role Description
Location: Templecombe, United Kingdom
Thales is a global technology leader with more than 83,000 employees on five continents. With over 7,500 people in the UK, operating across defence, space, aerospace, and digital security, we help build a future we can all trust. Thales supports the security and stability of our nation by providing extraordinary technology to our customers, as well as delivering social value to the UK with our products and services.
Start Date: 06 September 2027
Salary: £24,000 per annum
Employee type: Permanent
Location: Templecombe
Working Schedule: Monday – Friday, 37 hours a week (8 hours Monday – Thursday, 5 hours Friday)
Turn your curiosity into a career. If you’re passionate about engineering, eager to learn, and looking for a degree apprenticeship that combines academic study with exciting on-the-job experience, we’d love to hear from you.
Benefits of the programme:
- Earn a salary while studying for your qualification
- Gain hands‑on experience in a real engineering environment
- Receive job‑specific training and development
- Achieve a recognised engineering qualification
- Secure a permanent role from the start of your apprenticeship
- Have your tuition fees fully paid
About the Role
As a Machine Learning Apprentice, you will develop the technical knowledge, practical skills and professional behaviours needed to become a confident and capable engineer.
Working as part of our Specialist Underwater Systems Engineering team, you will support the rapid delivery of novel solutions, ensuring that our Royal Navy and export customers have the capability needed in today’s fast paced environment to carry out their critical missions, keeping them and our nation safe and secure.
Your responsibilities may include:
- Working with Underwater Systems specialists and software developers to create novel solutions
- Developing solutions with our partners across the multinational Thales organisation, academia and industry
- Participating in testing and validation activities
- Assisting with engineering investigations and problem solving
- Visiting customer sites, platforms and installations to support surveys, trials and system deployment where required
- Working with experienced engineers on live projects
What You Will Learn
Throughout the apprenticeship, you will gain experience and knowledge in:
- Professional engineering behaviours and industry best practice
- Understanding and working with complex engineering systems
- Different engineering roles and activities across live projects
- The Systems Engineering Lifecycle and key engineering processes
- Requirements capture, requirements management and system design techniques
- Systems Engineering tools and methods
- Testing, integration, verification, validation and qualification (IVVQ) activities
- Structured and methodical approaches to problem solving and investigation
You will study towards a Level 6 in AI Engineer Apprenticeship with QA. The AI Engineer programme gives you the skills to design, build, and deploy advanced AI systems – including generative AI and deep learning. You’ll move from concept to real-world application. Creating solutions that scale and deliver impact.
The programme is 23 months in duration and is delivered via a virtual delivery model combining:
- Instructor led live workshops (28 days)
- Interactive labs and self-paced learning
Programme structure – You will complete learning in:
- AI System Development and Automation
- AI Solution Design and Testing
- Deep Learning and Transformers
- Business Process Optimisation with AI
- Security, Ethics and Explainable AI
- Leading AI and Future Innovation
On completion of the programme, you will have the opportunity to achieve the Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI -102) in addition to the IfATE L6AIE Qualification.
Entry Requirements
To apply, you will need:
- Three A Levels Grade B or above in Maths
- At least one other relevant subject (Physics, Computer Science, Software, ICT)
- Minimum of five GCSEs at Grade 9-4 (A-C) English and Maths
Please note that Computer Science graduates are not eligible due to funding restrictions.
- Competitive salary of £24,000 per annum
- Performance-related pay uplifts
- Holiday entitlement of 201 hours a year (plus a company day and bank holidays)
- Contributory Company Pension
- Health Care Cash Plan
- Hybrid/flexible working options
- Employee assistance programme
- Learning and development support
- Employee discounts and wellbeing initiatives
- Life Cover
- 80 Hours Volunteering per year (first two years)
Because of the work we do at Thales, all roles are subject to security requirements.
To be considered for this position, you must have the permanent right to work in the UK and be able to successfully complete and maintain UK Government security checks, including Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) screening and Security Clearance (SC), which is a government background check, before starting employment.
To be eligible for SC clearance, you will typically need to have lived in the UK continuously for the last five years. As part of the vetting process, you will be asked to provide evidence of your identity, right to work in the UK, any time spent overseas during the last five years, and your employment and/or education history.
In addition, this role supports a UK Eyes Only programme and is therefore subject to government‑mandated nationality restrictions. To satisfy the security clearance requirements for access to highly sensitive information, applicants must have been British citizens from birth and must not hold any other nationality. This requirement is determined by the UK Government and is a condition of programme access rather than an employment preference.
Thales is an equal opportunities employer and diversity, and inclusion are integral to the success of Thales.
At Thales, we ensure equal opportunities, pay and working conditions for all. The benefits we offer include private medical insurance, buying or selling annual leave, cycle to work schemes, employee discounts, paid volunteering day, stocks and shares, annual bonus and much more depending on the role. Read more about our benefits here.
We are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued for who they are and the unique strengths they bring. Discover more about our programmes, employee networks, wellbeing policies, and inclusive features here.
If this role isn’t quite right for you, we encourage you to join our talent community where your details will be shared with our recruitment teams for other potential opportunities. Join the Talent Community here.
Join Thales in the UK – Innovate with us and shape the future!
#J-18808-Ljbffr…