Employer Funding for CFDE Associate
A letter you can adapt and send to your manager, and the two ways your employer can pay for your place on the Certified Forward Deployed Engineer (CFDE)™ Associate course.
Course
CFDE Associate
Course fee
£1,199. No VAT is charged.
Duration
18 weeks
Format
Online, structured cohort
Employer payment
Reimbursement, or corporate card on the learner’s payment link
Paperwork
Sponsorship letter and pro-forma invoice on request
Applicants
Team or corporate places
Invoices and receipts
Apply now →How employer funding works
Your employer can fund your place in either of two ways. You pay and your employer reimburses you, or your employer pays your secure payment link directly by corporate card. A pro-forma invoice addressed to your employer is available on request, and our admissions team can send your employer a sponsorship letter confirming your place, the course, the dates and the fee. To arrange this, email admissions@aiu.ac with your application reference.
For team or corporate places, your employer can email employers@aiu.ac.
You are the party to the contract even when your employer pays. Refunds are always issued to the original payer.
Dates for the next cohort, the fees and the application itself are on the Admissions and Scholarship page.
The letter
Copy the letter into an email, or download it as a Word document you can edit. Fill in the parts in square brackets and change anything you like; it reads best in your own words.
Subject: Request for funding: Certified Forward Deployed Engineer (CFDE)™ Associate
[Date]
Dear [Manager’s name],
More of our AI work now depends on getting systems out of the demo stage and into everyday use with the people who rely on them. I would like to build that skill properly, and I am writing to ask whether the business would fund my place on a course designed for exactly that work.
The course is Certified Forward Deployed Engineer (CFDE)™ Associate, run by Artificial Intelligence Uni Ltd. It is delivered online through the AIU learning platform as a structured cohort, combining recorded lectures and course materials with instructor-led discussion and feedback, and assignments and a capstone assessed by human reviewers.
Course: CFDE Associate
Provider: Artificial Intelligence Uni Ltd
Structure: 18 weeks: 15 weekly modules, then a three-week capstone
Time: approximately 8 hours per week
Starts: Monday 4 January 2027
Fee: £1,199 (no VAT is charged)
The course follows the work of deploying an AI system with a client through each stage of the engagement: post-sale handoff, discovery, scoping, build, deployment, iteration and hand-back. A continuing case study runs through it, and it ends with a three-week capstone in which I would complete a simulated client engagement on a case of my own, assessed by AIU practitioner reviewers. By the end I will have produced a capstone report covering discovery, architecture, design decisions and hand-back, a small working proof of the central idea, and a product-feedback note. The CFDE certification examination is separate and is not included in the fee.
Could the fee be met from our training and development budget? If that is not the right budget, I would be grateful to know which one could cover it. AIU can issue a sponsorship letter and a pro-forma invoice addressed to the business, and the fee can be paid in either of two ways: I pay and the business reimburses me, or the business pays my secure payment link directly by corporate card.
If you agree, I will bring what I learn back to the team as the course goes on, and share my capstone work once it has been assessed so that others can use it on our own projects.
I would be glad to talk this through whenever suits you. Thank you for considering it.
Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your role]
Download the letter as a Word document →
After your manager agrees
Step 1
Apply
Complete the application at apply.aiu.ac. It takes about ten minutes and there is no application fee. If your employer is paying, the application asks for the employer’s name and a finance contact.
Step 2
Ask for the paperwork
When you receive your offer, email admissions@aiu.ac with your application reference if your employer needs a sponsorship letter or a pro-forma invoice. The offer is valid for 3 days, and we extend it if you ask before it ends.
Step 3
Payment
Your employer pays your payment link by corporate card, or you pay and claim the fee back. Questions about invoices and receipts go to billing@aiu.ac.
Apply to join the January 2027 CFDE Associate cohort (2027-C1-CFDE-A)
Enrolment closes on Sunday 20 December 2026. There is no application fee.
UKPRN 10095512 · Company No. 14543918
