Data & AI Governance · Level 4Next start 16 November

Make data trustworthy. Make AI accountable.

£0 to you. A £10,000 Level 4 programme, government funded.
6 hours a week of your paid work time. Not your evenings.
The catch: you do the work. On your real job, with your manager's backing.

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A £10,000 Level 4 Data Protection & Information Governance Practitioner programme, fully funded through the Growth & Skills Levy. No cost to you, no career break. Over 15 months you'll build the governance frameworks, data quality controls and data protection skills that keep your organisation's data trustworthy and its AI accountable, then prove it in a three-month assessment.

Why this matters now

Most organisations still can't prove they handle data properly.
Now the EU AI Act and ICO are raising the bar on AI too.
Few professionals can do both — and organisations know it.

Data protection was already essential. AI just doubled the stakes.

What you'll learn

Know the rules and where they bite.
UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 in practice, risk scoring, DPIA-style reviews, and data quality and integrity treated as governance issues, not IT problems.
Turn rules into a working framework.
Governance structures, DPO duties and clear ownership. Communicate governance in plain English to every audience, audit whether a control actually works, and keep improving it.
Know what to do when data goes wrong.
Breach response against the 72-hour clock, incident investigation, privacy by design, and full DPIAs and LIAs you can defend.
Account for every piece of data you hold.
Subject access requests end to end, international transfers and processor agreements, and the ROPA, asset registers and retention decisions that prove you know what you have and why.
Govern AI, not just data.
The EU AI Act, ICO AI guidance and ISO/IEC 42001 in practice: fairness, bias monitoring, transparency and oversight for the AI systems your organisation already runs.
Prove it through your own work.
No exams. A work-based project with a presentation, and a professional discussion of your portfolio: the DPIAs, ROPA entries, audits and frameworks you've delivered at work.

You'll work with

DPIAsUK GDPRROPAISO/IEC 42001

Certificate from

Assessed by an independent assessment organisation. Your certificate comes from the Department for Education.

Is this for you?

You'll recognise yourself if:

You work in data governance, data quality, data management or data protection
AI just made governance critical, and you see the opportunity in that
You'd rather build the framework than present the strategy

Your week

6 hours of your paid work week. Not your evenings.

Skills stick when you use them every week. So the learning sits inside your working week, on your own work, with a coach and a cohort beside you.

2 hours

live with your coach and cohort

2 hours

on a project for your own job

2 hours

of wider learning around it

Each month's project is real work for your job, so the hours go into your job rather than on top of it.

Your manager needs to agree the time. We'll show you how to ask, and we can speak to them for you.

15 months of learning, one real project a month, then about 3 months for the final assessment.

What you get for your time

Worth £10,000. You pay £0. Government funded via the Growth & Skills Levy. We guide your employer through the setup.
Coaches from industry, not lecturers. Your coach has built governance frameworks and managed regulatory compliance in real organisations. Candid feedback and practical guidance, not hype.
A Level 4 qualification from the Department for Education. Goes on your CV and LinkedIn permanently.
We help you get your employer on board. Managers often agree once they see how the funding works and the real work it produces. We can speak to them for you.
Hands-on practice on Prism. Our 500M+ row simulation platform, modelled on real organisational data. The closest thing to working with live data without the risk.

Your projects

Real work, on your own job

A project every month. Here are 4 of the 15:

01A data flow map and risk register
02A full DPIA on a real process
03A ROPA entry and data sharing agreement
04An AI oversight model

One portfolio, built on your own work. Nothing confidential has to leave your organisation.

Your coaches

Industry professionals, not lecturers. They've done the job you want to do.

Tash Joslin

Data Coach

20+ years in data strategy. Co-founded Mojo.

Jen Godlonton

Head of Curriculum

Previously Black Swan Data. Heads curriculum at iO-Sphere.

Jonas Torres

AI Engineer & Data Coach

20+ years in data & AI, from Accenture to Director at Dialpad, and a frontier-LLM trainer. Has coached hundreds into data careers.

Abdul Mafe

Data & AI Coach

Enterprise data governance at Three Network.

Martin Stanley

Data Analytics Coach

Data analytics leadership across consulting, retail and telco (BT Group).

Honestly, iO-Sphere was one of the best decisions I've made. I came in nervous from a non-traditional background, but I never once felt like I didn't belong.
Ioana Mihaescu · iO-Sphere graduate

What our learners say

4.8 / 5on Google

“I'm in HR so I went in thinking most of it wouldn't apply to me, but I ended up automating parts of our HR process and building a system that flags people ready for promotion. Would definitely recommend if you're in a non-technical role.”

Steph

trustpilot

“A great balance between technical capability and real-world application. What really sets iO-Sphere apart is the emphasis on communication and storytelling, a critical skill in any data role.”

Sheena Shah

google

“The combination of technical training and soft skills development has been incredibly valuable, and it played a huge role in helping me secure my dream job.”

Carlos Gomes

google

“What stood out most was how practical it was. Rather than just learning theory, I worked on realistic business problems using large datasets. Really valuable experience.”

Keni Duguma

google

“We enrolled two of our analysts and both came back more capable and more confident. The programme paid for itself inside a quarter. We're already planning to put a third person through.”

Sarah Holt

L&D Manager

“A well-structured, thoughtful programme with a strong emphasis on practical skills. The curriculum is clearly designed by people who understand how data is actually used.”

Kemal Yusuf

google

“It was a very detailed programme. We covered data dictionaries, data governance, business drivers, OKRs, KPIs, customer segmentation, and A/B testing. All the coaches were amazing!”

Gloria Ayoola

google

“This course has been extremely great. It has taken me from no skills in data to being a fully fledged data analyst.”

Stacey Carroll

google

“Honestly, iO-Sphere was one of the best decisions I've made. I came in nervous from a non-traditional background, but I never once felt like I didn't belong.”

Ioana Mihaescu

google

“I started as someone quite lost in my job hunt. With the help of the coaches, I managed to secure a new role and feel much more confident from an upskilling and employability perspective.”

Mahli

google

“It improved my technical skills from nothing to being adept at Excel, SQL, and Power BI. I would definitely recommend this to anyone trying to upskill.”

Lachlan Brown

google

“A transformative intense experience. Great team and great training that prepares you for the work environment.”

A S

google

“I joined because I wanted proper certification to validate the skills I'd already built, not to pivot careers, but to formalise and level up what I was doing in data. And it delivered exactly that.”

Chris Thomas

google

FAQs

How much does it cost me?

Nothing. It's government funded via the Growth & Skills Levy, so you pay £0. For your employer: for learners under 25 there's nothing to pay at any employer (a levy payer with funds uses its levy). For learners 25 and over, an employer that doesn't pay the levy pays 5%, and a levy payer whose funds have run out pays 25%. VAT is added to any employer share, and we guide your employer's HR team through the setup.

How much of my time does it take?

Six hours a week during your working hours — your employer releases the time. Two hours of live coaching, two hours of self-paced learning, two hours of coach-supported project work. No evenings, no weekends.

Can I apply?

If you're on your employer's payroll in England, contracted for 30 hours or more a week, in a permanent job or with at least 18 months left on your contract, aged 19+ and with the right to work in the UK, you're almost certainly eligible. No degree required. We'll confirm in your 15-minute call.

When can I start?

The next cohorts start on 16 November 2026 and 18 January 2027. Apply now and we'll confirm which start suits you, and help you get ready for it.

What if my employer says no?

Many agree once they see how the funding works for their organisation, that it fits around your job, and the real work it produces. We'll give you everything you need for the conversation, and we're happy to speak to your manager directly.

Which government standard is this programme based on?

It's a fully funded Growth & Skills Levy programme, built on the official Data Protection & Information Governance Practitioner standard — Level 4, reference ST0967 on the Skills England register. You're assessed against the national standard, not an in-house syllabus — so the qualification is recognised by employers across the country and stays on your CV and LinkedIn for life. You can verify the standard yourself at skillsengland.education.gov.uk.

The standards are national — how is iO-Sphere's programme tailored?

Every Growth & Skills Levy funded programme in England is built on a national standard set by Skills England — it sets what you have to be able to do to qualify, and it's the same for every training provider. That's exactly what makes your qualification nationally recognised. What isn't fixed is how you learn it — and that's where we're different. We cover every requirement of the standard, then build the delivery around the data and AI tools, real projects and workplace scenarios you'll actually use in your role — including hands-on practice on Prism, our 500M+ row simulation platform. Same recognised qualification, through a programme that feels like your job, not a textbook.