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Reuters / Kai Pfaffenbach
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More than a third of all UK jobs
could be replaced by machines in as little as 20 years because of rapid
advances in technology, according to a study.
The paper, by two Oxford University
academics and Deloitte released on Tuesday, found that repetitive processing,
clerical and support service jobs are most at risk of being replaced.
Rapid advances in computer
intelligence puts jobs at high risk of disappearing, the researchers found.
“High risk” jobs include office and administrative support, sales and services,
transport, building and extraction, and production.
“Although the
replacement of people by machines is well understood, the scale and scope of
changes yet to come may not be,” the report
said.
However, 40 percent of UK jobs are
at low or no risk (51 percent in London), the researchers said, including
positions in skilled management, financial services, computing, engineering and
science, education, legal services, community services, the arts and media, and
healthcare.
It also found that jobs paying under
£30,000 a year were almost five times more likely to be replaced by machines
than jobs paying more than £100,000.
In London, about half of all jobs
were at no or low risk of being replaced, with a large section of the
population already in highly skilled roles.
The research also showed that the
fastest-growing jobs worldwide include employments that barely existed 10 years
ago, such as Zumba dance fitness instructors and Big Data architects.
Deloitte senior partner Angus
Knowles-Cutler said: “Unless these changes coming in the next two decades
are fully understood and anticipated by businesses, policy makers and
educators, there will be a risk of avoidable unemployment and
under-employment.”
“Skilled cities like London are incubators for
new ideas and products. With the right policies, London can be at the
front-line in developing the next generation of digital technologies,” concludes Carl Benedikt Frey of Oxford University.
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