AI skills for the West Midlands: Skills Bootcamps, WMCA funding, and what changed

What actually changed

If you've tried to find funded AI or digital training in the West Midlands in the last year, you've probably hit the same confusion I have. The old national route is gone, and nobody posts you a memo about it. Skills Bootcamps used to be won through big national competitions run by the Department for Education. That's over.

The government's own guidance now says it plainly: "We are not planning any more national competitions through DPS." Instead, Skills Bootcamps are "procured and delivered via local areas." It's one sentence, but it changes who you talk to, how the money flows, and who decides what gets taught.

Skills Bootcamps, if you've not come across them, are short, flexible courses in areas of genuine employer demand, with a job outcome attached at the end. Digital and AI skills sit squarely in scope. The training itself didn't change. The plumbing behind it did, and the plumbing is the part that decides whether you can actually get on a course or run one.

If you're a West Midlands employer or an individual

Start local. The single most useful thing to know is that commissioning now happens through your region, which for us is the West Midlands Combined Authority. That's where the decisions about which courses get funded, and for whom, increasingly sit.

For an employer, the question stops being "which national provider is on the list" and becomes "what has my combined authority commissioned, and does it fit my team." Bootcamps are built around employer demand, so if you have a real skills gap, say getting a whole team confident with AI tools rather than relying on one power user, that demand is worth voicing to the people commissioning locally. They're listening for exactly that.

For an individual, the practical move is to look at what's funded in your area rather than assuming a single national catalogue exists. Eligibility and cost depend on the local commissioning, so it's genuinely local now.

One honest note before we go further. I run Fautons. We're Birmingham-based and deliver AI training in Birmingham and across the West Midlands in person. We are not an approved Skills Bootcamp provider and we're not on a government framework, so I can't route anyone to funding. What I can do is explain how the funded side works so you ask the right people the right questions.

If you're a training provider

This change hits providers hardest, because the front door physically moved. Waiting for the next national DfE competition is waiting for a bus that isn't coming. The guidance is explicit that there won't be more national competitions through DPS.

So the instruction is direct: contact your local commissioner. GOV.UK tells providers who want to deliver, or subcontract on, a Skills Bootcamp to get in touch with their mayoral combined authority, local authority, or local enterprise partnership. In the West Midlands, that's the WMCA. Three ways it tends to play out:

• If you're a lead provider: your relationship is with WMCA, not Whitehall. That's who commissions, contracts, and holds you to the outcomes.
• If you're a smaller or specialist provider: subcontracting under a lead who already holds a local contract is often the realistic way in, especially for a niche like applied AI.
• Either way: the case you make is local. Which West Midlands employers need this, and what job outcomes you can actually evidence.

It's more relationship-driven and less transactional than a national bid portal, and that cuts both ways. Harder to game from a spreadsheet, easier if you genuinely know local employers and where their skills gaps are.

Why 2026-27 makes the regional door the main door

This isn't a one-off tweak that reverses next year. From 2026-27, adult-skills funding moves toward the Department for Work and Pensions, with devolved mayoral combined authorities funded directly and non-devolved areas funded by grant. The West Midlands is devolved, so WMCA is set to be funded directly.

Put the two changes side by side and the direction is hard to miss. Money and decision-making are consolidating at the regional level. The combined authority isn't just the current route for Skills Bootcamps; it's becoming the main channel for funded adult provision more broadly. If you're planning anything over the next couple of years that leans on public funding, the WMCA relationship is the one to build first, not last.

I'd rather say this straight than dress it up. The era of winning one national contract and delivering the same thing everywhere is fading. Regional fit is the game now, and that rewards providers who are actually in the region.

Where the AI demand fits, and where we fit

Why does any of this matter for AI in particular? Because the demand is real, and it isn't only in the private sector. The Cabinet Office's 2025 "One Big Thing" campaign was themed "AI for All", with the stated aim that every civil servant becomes a confident, responsible AI user. It cited a figure worth sitting with: only 28% of civil servants felt confident using AI at work.

That gap, lots of people expected to use AI and most not yet confident, is precisely what short, practical, funded training is meant to close. I see the same pattern across plenty of West Midlands employers I talk to. The appetite is there; the confidence isn't, and the two only meet through hands-on practice with real tools.

Our own work sits in that gap. If you want a feel for how we run it, I've written up our hands-on Claude and AI training for government teams, and there's more on AI and Claude training for public sector teams. To be clear about what we are: a Birmingham-based training company that delivers in person across the region. Not a framework supplier, not a funding route. If your funding runs through WMCA, that conversation starts with them, and we can talk about delivery separately.