Senior Contract AI Trainer, Part-Time, North of England in Manchester

Demand for our training has outgrown what our in-house team can deliver, so we are building a small associate bench of senior contract AI trainers across the UK. This is an ad hoc, part-time engagement rather than an employed post: we offer you days as they come up in your territory, you accept the ones that work for you, and you invoice for the days you deliver. There is no retainer, no minimum guarantee of work, and no employee benefits attached.

This is a senior position and we mean it. It is not a development opportunity, a first step into training, or a role we can coach someone into between bookings. You will be sent to a client alone, under our name, and the first time we see you work will often be the same day the client does. We are therefore only interested in trainers who have already trained organisations other than their own employer, commercially, and who can give us client references we can actually ring.

This is also a regional post rather than a national one, and you must live in the North of England, within reach of Manchester or Leeds. Bookings are often confirmed at short notice and start first thing in the morning, so we need someone already in the territory who knows how to get around it. We are not able to consider applicants who would travel in from elsewhere in the country, however willing.

One more thing that rules people out quickly: we need hands-on AI practitioners, not theorists. You should have implemented AI in real organisations yourself, with real constraints and real users, and be able to talk about what broke, what was abandoned, and what actually stuck. Delegates ask practical questions within the first ten minutes, and a trainer whose knowledge comes from reading about the field rather than working in it is found out immediately.

The work varies widely in scale. One booking may be a half-day with six people around a table at an SME; the next may be a full management team at a mid-sized firm; the next may be a presentation to a few hundred delegates at a conference or trade event. You need to be equally credible in all three settings, and to know that they are not the same job.

You will deliver Coaley Peak training programmes to client teams in your region: AI fundamentals for non-technical staff, practical business applications, prompt engineering and LLM best practice, AI governance and UK regulatory context, and platform-specific sessions on our engines. Most delivery is in person at client offices or event venues within your territory, with some remote sessions. A training day is 6 hours.

The Northern client base is broad and heavily weighted towards owner-managed SMEs, manufacturers, and logistics operators, alongside a fast-growing digital and professional services sector in Manchester and Leeds. Expect longer drives between engagements, more first-time AI audiences, and more sessions where the practical question is not what the technology can do but what it means for a team of eighteen people who have run the same process for a decade.

You are not writing the curriculum from a blank page. We provide the materials, the workbooks, the exercises and the case studies, and we brief you properly before every engagement. What we need from you is the part that cannot be packaged: the ability to walk into a room of people who are variously excited, sceptical, quietly worried about their jobs, or convinced they already know it all, and take all of them somewhere useful by the end of the day.

• Deliver Coaley Peak AI training in person across the North of England, from the North West across Yorkshire and the North East, plus remote sessions where the client prefers it.
• Deliver at every scale we are booked for: small SME workshops, full-team sessions, board briefings, and presentations to large audiences at conferences and industry events.
• Read the room and adapt delivery in real time: pace, depth, examples, and tone, based on the actual audience in front of you.
• Handle the emotional realities of AI training directly and honestly, including job security concerns, scepticism, and wide gaps in confidence within the same group.
• Run practical, hands-on exercises so that delegates leave having actually used the tools rather than having watched a demonstration.
• Prepare thoroughly for each engagement using the client brief and our materials, tailoring examples to the client's sector and workflows.
• Confirm bookings promptly, arrive ahead of time, and test the room and equipment before delegates arrive.
• Deliver AI governance, data protection, and responsible-use content accurately and without overstating what the technology can do.
• Complete post-session feedback and a short delivery report for every engagement.
• Flag content that is out of date, unclear, or landing badly so our in-house team can improve it.
• Represent Coaley Peak professionally on client premises and maintain confidentiality over everything you see and hear there.

• At least five years' experience delivering corporate training to professional audiences, at a senior level.
• Notable, provable experience training companies other than your own employer: commercial or client-side delivery, not solely internal staff training, with at least two contactable client references.
• Notable, demonstrable experience delivering AI training specifically: multiple engagements, with references or recordings we can review.
• Based in the North of England, within reach of Manchester or Leeds.
• Hands-on experience implementing AI inside real organisations, not theoretical or academic knowledge of it.
• A track record of complete reliability: you turn up, on time, prepared, every time, and can evidence it through client references.
• Strong working knowledge of large language models and practical AI business applications, including where these tools fail and how to work around it.
• Hands-on, current personal use of mainstream AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, or similar) in real work.
• High emotional intelligence: able to read a room, manage resistance and anxiety, and adapt delivery to the people present.
• Confident across the full range of settings, from a table of six at an SME to a stage presentation in front of a few hundred delegates.
• Available for ad hoc, part-time contract work with reasonable notice, and able to travel across your territory.
• Self-employed status or operating through your own limited company, with your own professional indemnity and public liability insurance.
• Right to work in the United Kingdom.

• Direct industry experience in one or more sectors well represented in this region: manufacturing and engineering, logistics and distribution, public sector and healthcare, professional services, and digital or technology businesses.
• Experience presenting at conferences, trade shows, or industry events.
• Formal training, teaching, or facilitation qualification (CELTA, CIPD L&D, PTLLS, or equivalent).
• Experience training regulated or sensitive audiences (healthcare, education, public sector, financial services).
• Understanding of UK AI governance frameworks and data protection legislation (UK GDPR, DPA 2018).
• Experience designing or contributing to training materials as well as delivering them.
• An established local network or professional profile within the region.

• Up to £550 per day for in-person delivery and up to £350 per day for remote delivery, dependent on experience and sector background, based on a 6-hour training day.
• Paid preparation time on top of the delivery rate, agreed in advance for each engagement.
• Genuinely ad hoc and part-time: we offer the days, you accept what suits, and you keep the rest of your diary.
• Reasonable travel and accommodation costs arranged and reimbursed where agreed in advance of the engagement.
• Prepared materials, workbooks, exercises, and a full client brief for every session, so your unpaid time stays low.
• Payment within 14 days of a correctly submitted invoice.
• Access to our internal AI briefings and tooling updates so your own knowledge stays current.
• First refusal on additional days in your territory as demand grows.
• This is a contract for services: the day rate is the whole of the package, with no holiday pay, pension, sick pay, or other employee benefits.