2027 AI Engineer Apprentice - Level 6 Machine Learning

Thales Group; Crawley; On-site; GBP 20,000 - 28,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid/flexible working options

Tuition fees fully paid

Contributory Company Pension

Health Care Cash Plan

Life Cover

80 Hours Volunteering per year

Job summary

Thales Group in the United Kingdom offers an AI Engineer Apprentice role, designed to develop technical knowledge, practical skills and professional behaviours to design, build, test and deploy dependable AI-enabled solutions. You will join our AI and engineering community and contribute to live projects across the machine learning lifecycle.

You will learn data preparation, model evaluation, deployment patterns, MLOps, cloud and security considerations, while collaborating with experienced

Qualifications

• Three A Levels Grade B or above in Maths.
• At least one relevant subject (Physics, Computer Science, Software, ICT).
• Or a Level 4/5 apprenticeship in a similar subject.
• Minimum of five GCSEs at Grade 9-4 (A-C), including English and Maths)

Responsibilities

• Preparing, exploring and validating data for machine learning use cases
• Developing and evaluating machine learning models and AI-enabled software components
• Writing clean, tested and documented code using appropriate engineering tools and practices
• Supporting model integration, deployment, monitoring and performance improvement
• Contributing to technical reviews, experiments and structured problem solving
• Working with experienced engineers and researchers on live projects

Education

Three A Levels Grade B or above in Maths

At least one relevant subject (Physics, Computer Science, Software, ICT)

Or a Level 4/5 apprenticeship in a similar subject

Minimum of five GCSEs at Grade 9-4 (A-C), including English and Maths

Job description

As an AI Engineer Apprentice, you will develop the technical knowledge, practical skills and professional behaviours needed to design, build, test and deploy dependable AI-enabled solutions. Working as part of our AI and engineering community, you will contribute to live projects across the machine learning lifecycle, collaborating with software, data, systems and domain specialists to turn needs into secure, maintainable solutions.

Your responsibilities may include:

• Preparing, exploring and validating data for machine learning use cases
• Developing and evaluating machine learning models and AI-enabled software components
• Writing clean, tested and documented code using appropriate engineering tools and practices
• Supporting model integration, deployment, monitoring and performance improvement
• Contributing to technical reviews, experiments and structured problem solving
• Working with experienced engineers and researchers on live projects

What You Will Learn

• Professional engineering behaviours, teamwork and industry best practice
• Programming, software engineering, version control and automated testing
• Data preparation, feature engineering and data quality techniques
• Machine learning methods, model selection, training and evaluation
• Deployment patterns, MLOps, monitoring and lifecycle management
• Cloud, compute and development tools used to deliver AI solutions
• Responsible AI, security, privacy, safety and regulatory considerations
• Structured approaches to troubleshooting, experimentation and continuous improvement

Requirements

• Three A Levels Grade B or above in Maths
• At least one relevant subject (Physics, Computer Science, Software, ICT)
• Or a Level 4/5 apprenticeship in a similar subject
• Minimum of five GCSEs at Grade 9-4 (A-C), including English and Maths

Please note Computer Science graduates are not eligible due to funding restrictions.

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.

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.

Benefits and training

• 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
• 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)

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.