Crispin Read

I run The Coders Guild, a Leeds training provider that teaches small and mid-sized businesses to use AI and automation in the work they already do. Before that, twenty years building software and leading technical teams, starting out freelancing in 2001 and ending up more interested in how teams get good than in any particular stack.

I led the R&D with Skills England that produced the UK’s Level 4 AI and Automation apprenticeship standard. It started with research into high-growth SMEs: what they want from AI, what stops them, what they can spare in time and attention. The standard was built backwards from that rather than forwards from a syllabus, and it gives smaller employers a government-funded route into AI adoption that didn’t exist before.

My work sits in three places now. Training and adoption inside businesses of roughly 25 to 500 people. Skills policy, where I sit on the FSB technical committee and Skills England’s expert network, and spend a lot of time making the case that SME needs are not enterprise needs scaled down. And social mobility, including the UN Global Compact Network UK consultations on regional barriers, where I took part in the Leeds session.

I speak regularly on AI adoption, apprenticeships, and why most AI rollouts stall for reasons that have nothing to do with the technology. I also organise Leeds Digital Drinks, which is now in its tenth year.

Come and find me if you’re building AI capability in a smaller organisation, or working on the policy side of skills.