AI to terminate over 5 million UK jobs by 2031
Over 30 per cent of existing roles in the UK will go in the next 15 years, thanks to AI, robotics and automation
AI, robotics and machine learning will replace over 5 million UK-based roles by 2031.
That's according to a new report from Joblift, a recruitment website. The study showed that the increasing importance of AI to many types of organisation is also creating roles.
Joblift's report stated that 136,939 jobs dealing directly with AI and automation have been posted in the last 12 months.
The report stated: 'Assuming this remains consistent, calculations suggest that over the next 15 years the field of AI, automation and robotics will create 2,535,009 new jobs in total. According to an analysis by PwC, 30 per cent of existing roles in the UK are at risk of being replaced by robotics in the next 15 years. Assuming the current rate of growth for the whole UK labour market remains at a median increase of 1.49 per cent, by 2031, 13,375,363 jobs will at risk from automation. Therefore, the newly created roles would be able to fill only 19 per cent of the jobs lost to automation and robotics.'
The study continued to state that 64,495 of the AI, automation and robotics roles were posted under the ICT category, the most active category for these postings, with 17,843 posted in Engineering.
The most in-demand positions were found to be System Developers and Analysts (30,087 roles) which account for 22 per cent of all vacancies advertised since July 2016.
15,338 positions were posted for Programmers, making this role the second most-wanted job, followed by Consultants and Specialists with 6,799 postings.
According to the analysis from PWC, the categories which will be most at risk to replacement by automation are Transportation and Storage, Manufacturing, and, Wholesale and Retail, so the new positions created by automation will do little to help the areas most at risk of job losses.