AI is set to drastically change the UK job market in the coming years with up to a third of jobs expected to be automated or likely to change as a result of the emergence of AI, impacting 10.5 million workers, according to a report from Robert Walters and VacancySoft.

 The report found that 133 million new jobs are expected to be created globally with the uptake of AI by industry.

Robert Walters also found that demand for data professionals is rapidly growing. IT professionals dedicated to data management appear to be the fastest growing area within large or global entities, with volumes increasing ten-fold in three years, an increase in vacancies of 160% since 2015. Data roles across the board have increased by 80% since 2015, with key areas of growth including data scientists and engineers.

“What has been the most interesting to see is the emergence of data scientist as a mainstream profession, with job vacancies increasing by a staggering 110% year-on-year,” Robert Walters stated. “The same trend can be seen with data engineers, averaging 86% year-on-year job growth.”

Within professional services, vacancies for data analysts (+19.5%), data managers (+64.2%), data scientists (+28.8), and data engineers (+62%) have all increased year-on-year. 

Ollie Sexton, Principal at Robert Walters, commented, “As businesses become ever more reliant on AI, there is an increasing amount of pressure on the processes of data capture and integration. As a result, we have seen an unprecedented number of roles being created with data skill-set at their core.”

Our job force cannot afford to not get to grips with data and digitalisation,” Sexton added. “Since 2015 the volume of data created worldwide has more than doubled, increasing (on average) by 28% year-on-year. 

Tom Chambers, Manager - Advanced Analytics and Engineering at Robert Walters, also commented, “What we are seeing is that of those businesses that are prepared to invest heavily in AI and data analytics they are already outperforming their competitors – and so demand for talent in this area shows no signs of wavering.”