Location: Crawley, 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.
2027 AI Researcher Apprentice – Level 6 Machine Learning
Start Date: 06 September 2027
Salary: £24,000 per annum
Employee type: Permanent
Location: Crawley
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 artificial intelligence, 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 degree
- Gain hands-on experience in a real AI and engineering environment
- Receive job-specific training and development
- Achieve a recognised Level 6 qualification
- Secure a permanent role from the start of your apprenticeship
- Have your tuition fees fully paid
About the Role
As an AI Researcher Apprentice, you will develop the technical knowledge, analytical skills and professional behaviours needed to investigate challenging problems and advance the responsible use of artificial intelligence.
Working alongside AI researchers, engineers and domain specialists, you will support research and experimentation on live projects, translating questions into evidence-based findings, prototypes and recommendations.
Your responsibilities may include:
- Reviewing technical literature and summarising relevant methods and evidence
- Designing controlled experiments and defining clear evaluation criteria
- Preparing data and developing proof-of-concept machine learning models
- Analysing results, limitations, uncertainty and potential sources of bias
- Documenting methods and communicating findings through reports, demonstrations and reviews
- Working with experienced researchers and engineers on live research challenges
What You Will Learn
Throughout the apprenticeship, you will gain experience and knowledge in:
- Professional research behaviours, teamwork and industry best practice
- Research methods, literature review and development of testable hypotheses
- Statistics, experimental design and reproducible analysis
- Machine learning principles, algorithms and model evaluation
- Programming, data handling and rapid prototyping techniques
- Critical assessment of evidence, uncertainty, robustness and limitations
- Responsible AI, security, privacy, safety and ethical considerations
- Clear technical writing, presentation and communication of research outcomes
Degree Apprenticeship Programme
You will study towards a Level 6 Machine Learning qualification with Corndel , developing the knowledge, skills and behaviours required to build and apply artificial intelligence responsibly in an engineering environment.
The programme is delivered through a virtual learning model, combining:
- Live virtual lecturers
- Online learning resources
- Self-directed learning activities
This programme covers the full AI lifecycle, from concept and design, through to deployment and governance to provide a strong foundation for your role at Thales.
Entry Requirements
A Levels
- Three A Levels
- Grade B or above in Maths
- At least one other relevant subject (Physics, Computer Science, Software, ICT)
- Or Level 4/5 apprenticeship in a relevant discipline
GCSEs
- Minimum of five GCSEs at Grade 4/C or above
- Must include: English Language
- Mathematics
Please note that Computer Science graduates are not eligible due to funding restrictions.
Benefits
- 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)
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