High-flying City workers set to be most affected by AI, finds UK study

High-flying professionals in the City of London will be in the eye of the storm as generative artificial intelligence transforms the UK’s labour market, according to government research published on Tuesday.

The report, billed as one of the first attempts to quantify the impact of AI on the UK jobs market, used methodology developed by US academics to identify the occupations, sectors and areas that would be most affected by the adoption of AI, and by large language models in particular.

The analysis by the Department for Education’s Unit for Future Skills found the finance and insurance sector was more exposed than any other. It used a measure that looked at the abilities needed to perform different jobs and how far they could be aided by 10 common AI applications, including image recognition, language modelling, translation and speech recognition.

Management consulting was the occupation most affected by any type of AI application, followed by financial managers, accountants, psychologists, economists and lawyers.

Call centre workers topped the list of occupations most exposed to large language models, such as the software behind Open AI’s ChatGPT, the study found. Other highly affected jobs include university lecturers, credit controllers, public relations specialists and the clergy.

The report also highlighted the degree to which disruption would be centred on the capital and employees with degree-level qualifications — in contrast to previous periods of rapid technological change.

London was five times as exposed as the north-east of England to AI, on the DfE’s measure, because of its concentration of jobs in professional occupations.

The analysis did not try to distinguish between jobs that could be supplanted by AI and those where the new technology augmented the worker’s role.

Other studies have suggested that up to a third of UK jobs could be subject to some degree of automation over the next 20 years, but that most people would see the way they performed their roles change, rather than being replaced by machines.

However, the report called attention to recent research by the IMF, suggesting that AI could have a polarising effect on the labour markets of advanced economies, because they were both better able to harness AI to boost growth, but also more vulnerable to job losses.

Letters in response to this report:

AI in the workplace needs a global code of ethics / From Srinivas Mukkamala, Socorro, New Mexico, US

Artificial intelligence can be a useful workforce tool / From Ashley Ramrachia, Chief Executive & Co-Founder, Academy, Manchester, UK