There are around half as many job vacancies in England’s artificial intelligence sector as there were two years ago, suggesting employers are taking a cautious approach to the technology despite government efforts to build it into a world-class industry.
Data from Reed Recruitment, analysed by Bloomberg, shows that postings for jobs with AI-related keywords – such as ‘machine learning’ and ‘neural networks’ – have fallen even faster than the wider UK labour market in recent years, despite exploding interest in the technology.
The findings highlight the difficulty Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is having in boosting the UK economy, and mark a setback on the eve of a major international summit he’s hosting on the safe development of AI. This week’s meeting at Bletchley Park, home to British code breakers including Alan Turing during the Second World War, will bring together ministers and top companies to discuss the risks of AI, including disrupting elections, cybersecurity and humans losing control of the technology.
Sunak has said he wants the UK to lead the way in developing AI, calling it the “defining technology of our time”. But in England, the number of AI job postings in the three months to September fell by almost 40% compared to a year ago. They’re down 61% from their peak in 2019, and have fallen faster than the rest of the labour market over the past 18 months.
According to James Reed, chairman of Reed Recruitment, the figures may suggest that it will take time for AI to seep into the labour market and become embedded in the skills of the existing workforce, in addition to creating new jobs.
“Employers may be showing a healthy degree of caution about how best to maximise the benefits of this new technology,” Reed said. “Rather than rapidly creating new ‘AI jobs’, it’s more likely that AI skills will gradually become an integral part of existing job roles, enhancing people’s skills and productivity rather than replacing jobs outright.”
While the number of AI vacancies has fallen from its peak, there’s a growing interest in the technology among candidates as predictions about its ability to transform the economy and the way people work increase. Applications for AI roles in June and July 2023 were almost double the number of the previous year, according to Reed.
He said AI jobs will become a more important part of the labour market as “the full capabilities of bespoke AI solutions become clearer, and their utility to different business sectors expands”.
While job postings have tracked a general decline in vacancies in the labour market, experts are concerned that in the long run, AI will make swathes of roles obsolete, forcing many workers to quickly retrain. Other economists are more upbeat, predicting that AI will also create jobs by sparking a productivity boom that will drive economic growth.
“Jobs in AI and related fields will become a significantly larger part of the labour market in the coming years,” said Kris Harris, regional director of UK technology solutions at Robert Half. “Ultimately, AI skills will become a key skill for workers to learn. AI technology is increasingly being integrated into different industries, automating tasks and making processes more efficient.”
He said those with AI skills “will have a competitive advantage in the near future”.
Reed’s data showed that the UK’s AI employment hotspots – when looking at AI jobs per 10,000 workers – are outside of London, which has traditionally been a hub for tech companies.
They also show the importance of universities in leading innovation and employment in AI.
Cambridge and Oxford topped the list of AI jobs created since the start of 2018. Counted per 10,000 workers, these two cities had almost 320 and around 190 jobs respectively. Manchester and Bristol – which also have prominent universities – were also in the top 10, with 103 and 64 AI jobs by this measure. That’s well above London’s level of less than 25.
“The prominence of AI job growth in university cities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester and Bristol suggests that AI remains an exploratory and rapidly evolving field, with strong foundations forming around innovation, science and technology hubs before spreading its influence across the wider economy,” said Reed.
Ahead of the much-anticipated summit, Sunak said on Thursday that AI will be “as transformative as the industrial revolution, the advent of electricity or the birth of the internet”.
But he warned that the rapidly emerging technology also brings “new dangers”, including the use of AI for cyber-attacks, disinformation, terrorism and the creation of chemical or biological weapons.
“In the most unlikely but extreme cases, there is even a risk that humanity could completely lose control of AI through the kind of AI sometimes referred to as ‘super intelligence’,” he said. “However uncertain and unlikely these risks are, if they were to materialise, the consequences would be incredibly serious.”
