UK leaders fear AI gap as training lags, survey finds

Emergn has published research showing that 23% of UK senior leaders pretend to understand more about AI than they do. The survey also found that 38% fear their career prospects will suffer unless they improve their AI skills within the next year.

The findings point to unease among experienced managers as businesses push AI into daily work. According to the consultancy, all respondents had been in their current role for at least five years.

More than a fifth of those surveyed, or 22%, said they felt anxious or had lost sleep over the pace of AI-driven change in their industry. The same proportion said they felt out of their depth because of AI's effect on their role.

The pressure does not appear to be confined to technical specialists or junior staff. Senior leaders, often expected to guide teams through change, appear to be managing uncertainty of their own while trying to project confidence internally.

The poll also suggests training may be lagging behind expectations. Only 43% of UK senior leaders said they had received substantial, ongoing AI training in the past 12 months.

Against that backdrop, 40% said they would change employers for better AI training. That points to a potential retention issue for large organisations if staff see learning support elsewhere as more credible or practical.

Another result underlines how quickly workplace priorities may be shifting. Some 43% of respondents said AI skills were now more valuable than formal qualifications.

That view reflects a wider recalibration in many businesses, where the ability to understand and apply new tools is becoming more visible in hiring, promotion and performance discussions. For senior staff, the concern is not simply whether AI will alter processes, but whether it will redefine what counts as relevant expertise.

Wider strain

The study links concern about AI to broader fatigue around organisational change. More than a fifth of UK leaders, or 22%, said they would seriously consider leaving because of how often transformation takes place at their organisation.

That matters because the same research found that 36% believed delivery performance would deteriorate significantly if their most experienced transformation staff left. In large companies, where institutional knowledge can be concentrated among long-serving managers, turnover during major change programmes can slow execution and unsettle teams.

The survey covered 350 UK senior leaders at organisations with at least 1,000 employees. Censuswide conducted the fieldwork.

Emergn said the results support making learning and coaching part of everyday work rather than treating them as a separate exercise. The consultancy also argued that leaders need room to acknowledge gaps in their knowledge without undermining their authority.

Alex Adamopoulos commented on the findings. "It is hard to admit you do not understand something when you are supposed to be the person with the answers. But pretending leaves you with the same unanswered question tomorrow. Employers need to make it easier for people to say where they are stuck and get useful help," said Alex Adamopoulos, Chief Executive Officer, Emergn.

The comments frame the issue as cultural as much as technical. In many organisations, leaders are expected to explain new systems and justify investment decisions even when the underlying tools are evolving quickly and unevenly across departments.

For employers, that creates a management challenge beyond the rollout of AI tools themselves. If senior decision-makers feel unable to admit uncertainty, businesses may struggle to identify where support is needed or whether training programmes are reaching the people making operational choices.

It may also shape labour mobility. A willingness among 40% of respondents to move for stronger AI training suggests development policy is becoming part of the competition for experienced staff, alongside pay, flexibility and promotion prospects.

A second comment focused on the personal effect of that pressure. "If someone is worrying about their career or losing sleep over AI, telling them to keep up is not much of an answer. Give them time to learn and coaching they can use in the working day. People need to see a future for themselves as the work changes," said Adamopoulos.