Help employees recognise cyber risks, make safer decisions and know when to report concerns.
Cybersecurity Awareness Training for the Workplace is a practical, non-technical professional development programme that helps employees understand common cybersecurity risks and make safer decisions in their everyday work.
From phishing emails and suspicious links to passwords, remote working and AI-enabled impersonation, cyber threats increasingly depend on human decisions as well as technology.
This programme gives employees a simple, memorable framework for safer decisions:
STOP → CHECK → VERIFY → REPORT
Learners develop the confidence to pause before acting, assess what they are being asked to do, independently verify unusual requests and report concerns or mistakes quickly.
Why offer this programme?
Cybersecurity is not solely the responsibility of IT or security teams. Employees across an organisation routinely make decisions involving emails, links, payments, passwords, data, devices and access to information.
Effective cybersecurity awareness training needs to do more than tell employees what threats exist. It needs to help people recognise potentially risky situations and know what to do next.
This course focuses on behaviour and decision-making rather than technical terminology. Learners work through realistic workplace situations and practise safer responses that can be transferred into their working lives.
Importantly, the programme avoids presenting employees as the 'weakest link'. Instead, it positions people as an important part of an organisation's defence and encourages rapid reporting without blame or fear.
For training providers, colleges, employers and workforce development organisations, it provides a ready-to-deliver programme addressing a workplace skill that is relevant across sectors, job functions and levels of seniority.
Who delivers this programme?
The programme is designed for organisations providing professional development and workforce training, including:
- Independent training providers
- Further and higher education institutions
- Employer learning and development teams
- Professional bodies
- Business and workforce development organisations
- International education partners
As part of the ABE Future Workskills portfolio, the it can complement wider professional development provision.
Click here to find out more about delivering Cybersecurity Awareness Training for the Workforce.
Who is the programme for?
The programme is designed for employees across different roles, sectors and levels of seniority.
Content focuses on the situations and decisions employees may encounter during everyday work. This makes it suitable both for organisations seeking cybersecurity awareness training for their workforce and for training providers looking to offer practical professional development to individuals and employers.
What will learners gain?
Learners develop practical cybersecurity awareness that can help them make safer workplace decisions. The programme covers:
- Phishing and suspicious communications – including email, text messages, calls, QR codes, links and attachments.
- Social engineering – understanding how attackers can exploit trust, helpfulness, curiosity, urgency and authority.
- Passwords and multi-factor authentication (MFA) – making safer authentication decisions and recognising unexpected requests.
- Information and data – considering recipients, permissions, approved channels and accidental disclosure.
- Remote working and travel – protecting information, conversations and devices when working away from the usual workplace.
- AI-enabled deception – recognising that AI can make phishing, impersonation and synthetic content increasingly convincing.
- Incident reporting – understanding why concerns, mistakes and suspected incidents should be reported quickly through the appropriate organisational route.
The emphasis is not on memorising technical terminology, but on knowing how to respond when faced with a potentially risky situation.
Relevant to today's cybersecurity threats
Cyber threats continue to evolve, and suspicious communications are becoming increasingly sophisticated.
The programme therefore moves beyond traditional advice such as simply looking for poor spelling or obvious mistakes. Learners consider the context and requested action and learn why independent verification is often more reliable than trying to decide whether a communication looks genuine.
The course also addresses AI-enabled impersonation and deception, where convincing text, images, audio or other content can make fraudulent requests harder to recognise. The practical lesson remains the same: verify the request, not how convincing it looks or sounds.
A complete set of delivery resources
The programme is supported by ready-to-use teaching and learning materials designed to help approved ABE delivery partners deliver engaging and consistent cybersecurity awareness training.
- Tuition slides with practical demonstrations, workplace examples and learner activities.
- Student Guide and Workbook supporting independent learning, practical exercises and reflection.
- Tutor Guide with detailed delivery guidance, facilitation notes and recommended teaching approaches.
- Lesson plan with structured delivery schedules, practical AI Labs and assessment guidance.
The content can be adapted to incorporate an organisation's own reporting procedures, approved applications, authentication arrangements, data-handling requirements and remote-working policies.
For training providers, this creates an opportunity to respond to employer demand for cybersecurity awareness training without having to develop a programme from scratch, while retaining the flexibility to contextualise delivery for different organisations and sectors.
Frequently asked questions
What is cybersecurity awareness training?
Cybersecurity awareness training helps employees recognise common cyber risks and understand the behaviours that can help protect themselves and their organisation. Rather than technical cybersecurity skills, this programme focuses on practical workplace decisions and actions.
Who needs cybersecurity awareness training?
Cybersecurity risks can affect employees in almost any role or sector. Anyone who uses email, handles information, accesses workplace systems, works remotely or communicates with customers, colleagues or suppliers can benefit from greater cybersecurity awareness.
Does the course require technical or cybersecurity knowledge?
No. The programme is specifically designed as a practical, non-technical programme. Necessary terminology is explained in English, with the emphasis placed on behaviour and action.
Does the programme cover phishing and social engineering?
Yes. Learners consider phishing across email, texts, calls, QR codes, links and attachments, as well as social engineering techniques that exploit factors such as trust, urgency and authority.
Does the cybersecurity course cover AI-related threats?
Yes. The programme introduces AI-enabled deception and explains how AI can make phishing, impersonation and synthetic content more convincing. Rather than relying on appearance alone, learners are encouraged to independently verify important or unusual requests.
Build a more cyber-aware workforce
Cybersecurity awareness isn't about turning every employee into a cybersecurity expert. It is about helping people recognise risk, make safer decisions and act quickly when something goes wrong.
With its practical STOP → CHECK → VERIFY → REPORT approach, Cybersecurity Awareness Training for the Workplace gives employees a simple framework they can use every day.
Interested in delivering this programme?
Direct enrolment is not currently available.