UK on course to be world leader in AI

Jobs within the UK’s artificial intelligence sector are growing at a record rate.

In fact, Britain’s AI sector is growing faster than rivals in America, Canada and Australia – putting Britain on course to be the global leader in AI technology. According to jobsite Indeed, the number of AI jobs has increased threefold since 2015.

Roles typically include data scientists and machine learning engineers, specialists who play a crucial part in teaching machines how to use and interpret data. AI jobs also pay well above the UK average salary, with data scientists typically taking home £56,385 a year and machine learning engineers earning an average of £54,617 a year.

Tara Sinclair, economist and senior fellow at Indeed, commented: “From both a jobs and a society perspective, AI is a technology that has the

potential to be truly transformative. While the jury is still out on how many existing roles could be made redundant as AI becomes more widespread, or whether its potential for job creation outweighs any losses, in the short-term AI is providing a shot in the arm to Britain’s jobs market.

“A number of companies are exploring how AI might be used to boost their bottom line, while also holding out the prospect of previously undreamt of technology that could one day excite and delight millions of people. Britain’s reputation as a tech leader has made it a natural home for the booming AI sector, and the UK’s concentration of AI jobs has risen steadily – and now outstrips that in the other major English-speaking countries.

“AI jobs are not for everyone, as they require highly specialised skills. So it’s essential that post-Brexit Britain retains the ability to attract the global talent it needs to keep its AI sector in pole position.”

Despite the financial rewards on offer, there is still a challenge to find the talent. Indeed researchers found that the share of available AI jobs in Britain outstripped the share of interested candidates by 6 times. The number of UK jobseekers looking for AI roles has doubled since 2015, but it’s still struggling to keep up with demand from employers.

At the start of 2018, 1,300 out of every million UK jobs advertised on Indeed were in AI, nearly double the level in Canada and over 20 per cent more than the level in the US.