Revealed: The jobs most likely to be taken by ROBOTS – so, is your profession at risk?

The idea of ​​a robot taking your job may sound like science fiction.

But a new study suggests this could soon become a reality for many Brits.

The Ministry of Education research has revealed which jobs are most likely to be filled by robots.

It’s bad news for white-collar professionals, with accountants, consultants and psychologists among the professions most at risk.

However, there are athletes, roofers and steel fabricators who can all rest easy as the study suggests these professions are the safest due to the advance of AI technology.

In the study, researchers analyzed 365 categories of jobs, including the different skills needed to do each job.

Each of these skills was then compared to a selection of the ten most common AI applications to see if they could be supported by AI.

This allowed the researchers to assign each profession an AI occupational exposure score, ranging from -2 to 1.5, with a higher score meaning a greater likelihood of replacement.

Which jobs are most at risk?

The researchers found that jobs that require a higher level of formal education are much more likely to be replaced by AI in the future.

The occupations most at risk were management consultants and business analysts, with an exposure score of 1.49.

This was closely followed by financial managers and directors, accountants and psychologists.

The legal professions are also in the top 10 riskiest professions, with an exposure score of 1.4.

AI has already started automating some aspects of the legal profession, as the first contract negotiated entirely by AI was signed last month.

The report’s authors said: ‘The UK education system and employers will need to adapt to ensure that individuals in the workforce have the skills they need to make the most of the potential benefits of progress in AI entails.’

The researchers also made a separate assessment for Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT.

Ranked by exposure to LLMs, it was the telephone salespeople most likely to be replaced by a chatbot.

Once again, it emerged that psychologists will most likely be replaced by AI in the future, with chatbots posing an even greater risk to their jobs than AI in general.

Surprisingly, it was also believed that the clergy would most likely be replaced by chatbots with an exposure score of 1.42.

The study found that priests, pastors, imams and rabbis were about as likely to be replaced by AI as economists and statisticians.

Which jobs are least at risk of being replaced?

During the Industrial Revolution, it may have been manual workers who were most at risk of being replaced by robots, but AI has decisively reversed that trend.

The research found that jobs involving technically difficult manual labor are much less likely to be replaced by AI.

The report states: ‘The professions least exposed to AI and LLM include many of the same areas, including more manual work that is technically difficult, in unpredictable environments and with lower wages.’

The report’s authors add that lower wages in these jobs, with the exception of professional athletes, reduced the incentive to seek automated alternatives.

Athletes, roofers and ‘basic construction occupations’ were all at the lowest risk of replacement.

The report also shows that jobs requiring the lowest level of formal education have less exposure to AI.

The authors say the only exception was night security guards, where “potential applications of AI have been documented in everything from live video monitoring to AI-powered patrol bots.”

Where are people’s jobs most at risk from AI?

The DfE report also highlights wide differences in exposure to AI between industries and geographic locations.

The financial and insurance sectors were the most exposed to AI, closely followed by the information and communications industries and professional, scientific and technical functions.

At the other end of the scale, accommodation and food services were found to be the least at risk from AI replacement.

This was followed by the motor trade and the agricultural, forestry and fishing industries.

Geographically, it was London and the South East of England where humans were most at risk of being replaced by AI.

Jobs in London were more than twice as exposed to AI than the UK as a whole and more than five times more exposed than in the North East, where the risk was lowest.