30 per cent of existing UK jobs could be done by machines in early 2030s

Up to around 30 per cent of existing UK jobs could face automation over the next 15 years, but new AI-related technologies will also boost productivity and generate additional jobs elsewhere in the economy, according to new analysis by PwC in its latest UK Economic Outlook report.

The report looked in detail at the task composition of jobs in different industry sectors and occupations, using machine learning techniques to model the potential impact of AI in the future based on OECD data.

The study estimates that the UK (30 per cent) has a lower proportion of existing jobs at potential high risk of automation than the US (38 per cent) and Germany (35 per cent), but more than Japan (21 per cent).

PwC’s analysis finds the likely impact of automation varies significantly across industry sectors: transportation and storage (56 per cent), manufacturing (46 per cent) and wholesale and retail trade (44 per cent) have the highest proportion of jobs facing potential high risks of automation among the larger sectors.

Education and health and social work are estimated to face the lowest risks of automation given the relatively high proportion of tasks that are hard to automate.

John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC, said: “A key driver of our industry-level estimates is the fact that manual and routine tasks are more susceptible to automation, while social skills are relatively less automatable. That said, no industry is entirely immune from future advances in robotics and AI.

“Automating more manual and repetitive tasks will eliminate some existing jobs, but could also enable some workers to focus on higher value, more rewarding and creative work, removing the monotony from our day jobs. By boosting productivity - a key UK weakness over the past decade - and so generating wealth, advances in robotics and AI should also create additional jobs in less automatable parts of the economy as this extra wealth is spent or invested.

“The UK employment rate is at its highest level now since comparable records began in 1971, despite all the advances in digital and other labour-saving technologies we have seen since. It is not clear that the future will be radically different from the past in terms of how automation will affect overall UK employment rates.”

The potential impact of job automation also varies according to the characteristics of individual workers.

On average, PwC estimates that a higher proportion of male jobs (35 per cent), particularly those of men with lower levels of education, are at higher potential risk of automation than female jobs (26 per cent).

This reflects the fact that relatively highly automatable sectors such as transportation and storage and manufacturing tend to have high proportions of men working in them. In contrast, female workers are more concentrated in occupations requiring higher levels of social skills - and often higher average education levels - such as health and education.