One third of jobs in the UK 'at risk from automation' but will IT jobs be affected?

Deloitte finds that jobs that pay less than £30,000 a year nearly five times more likely to be culled than jobs paying over £100,000

Technology, automation and robotics will change the face of the UK labour market in the next 20 years, with more than a third (35 per cent) of existing jobs at risk of being replaced, research by Deloitte has found.

Deloitte carried out the research with Carl Benedikt Frey, of the Oxford Martin School, and Michael A Osborne, of the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford.

It found that jobs at "high risk" of being replaced included office and administrative support; sales and services; transportation; construction and extraction; and production.

Those jobs in the UK that pay less than £30,000 a year are nearly five times more likely to be replaced by automation than jobs paying over £100,000, the study found. In London, lower paid jobs are eight times more likely to be replaced.

On the flip side, about 40 per cent of UK jobs, and 51 per cent of London jobs, are at low or no risk. These jobs include computing, "skilled management", financial services, engineering and science, education, legal services, community services, the arts and media and healthcare.

According to Lee Chant, managing director of the IT arm of recruitment firm Hays, IT jobs won't be affected - at least in terms of headcount - by these changes.

"Jobs in IT will change, as they always have, but instead of replacing their jobs, new technology such as automation and robotics will provide opportunities for IT professionals who adapt their skills to meet the changing needs of employers," he told Computing.

Chant said that IT professionals were already adapting their skills in order to stay relevant.

And Hays IT's own research shows that skilled professionals in areas of high demand such as information security are reaping the rewards, with pay increases of over 10 per cent in some cases.

"As 85 per cent of employers are concerned about skill shortages in the year ahead, the challenge the industry faces is how to adapt to a shifting labour market. Employers and educators will need to work together to develop a workforce of highly-skilled professionals with the transferable skills to take advantage of the opportunities offered by this new technology," Chant suggested.

And, according to the Deloitte research, it seems as if the IT industry is welcoming the change, with 81 per cent of technology, media and telecoms companies expecting technological change to have a predictable and positive impact on their businesses.