AI Skills for Business Competency Framework

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how people live, work, and participate in society, offering significant potential to enhance productivity, competitiveness, and public value. As AI systems become increasingly embedded in everyday services and organisational processes, employees across all roles require the skills and confidence to engage with these technologies safely, effectively, and ethically. For organisations, successful AI adoption depends not only on technical capability but also on ensuring alignment with ethical principles, regulatory expectations, and long-term public trust. The AI Skills for Business Competency Framework has been developed to provide a structured understanding of the skills needed across the workforce. It offers a clear, role-aligned articulation of the knowledge, skills, and behaviours required for responsible and effective AI engagement across the workplace and wider society. The framework is designed to support organisations, educators, and policymakers in planning capability development, informing curriculum design, guiding organisational governance, and targeting professional training.When referencing or reusing this work, please cite both the Zenodo record (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18892559) and the accompanying peer-reviewed publication: Forshaw, Matthew, Clementina Ramirez, Tahira Suleman, and Vera Matser. "A National Competency Framework for AI Skills across Education and the Workforce." In Proceedings of the 31st ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1, pp. 408-414. 2026.