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Admin, customer service and machine operators among most threatened roles, research suggests
Harry CockburnFriday 28 November 2025 19:30 GMTComments
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As many as three million jobs could be lost over the next decade due to the rapidly increasing role played by AI and automation, a major educational research organisation has warned.
A report by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) warns that “extensive changes are required” to ensure people have the skills needed to maintain a foothold in the workplace.
The areas particularly at risk are in “high-risk declining occupations”, the research team said, suggesting administrative, secretarial, customer service and machine operators may be among the most threatened roles.
Furthermore, the changes in the labour market set to eliminate many of these roles are now happening “as much as three times” faster than previously projected.
The NFER warned that this doesn’t only pose a threat to workers already in these occupations, but also for young people who leave education without the skills and qualifications needed to enter high-skilled “growth occupations”.
Anthropicpremium (Getty/iStock)The organisation set out what they described as “essential employment skills”, those which are already heavily utilised today, but which they said “will become even more vital across the whole economy over the next decade”.
The skills are: collaboration, communication, creative thinking, information literacy, organising, planning and prioritising, as well as problem solving and decision making.
The research indicates the number of jobs in the labour market as a whole is expected to grow by 2035, but that most growth will be in professional and associate professional occupations such as science, engineering and legal roles which heavily utilise the essential employment skills.
Jude Hillary, one of NFER’s authors, described the changes required as a “critical challenge” that needs to be met “head on”.
“Meeting projected skills shortages means a collective response from government, employers and across the education and skills systems,” he said.
“We need to strengthen support in the early years, tackle inequalities in schools, strengthen pathways into growing jobs, and rebuild the adult skills system to deliver growth that benefits everyone.”
The report warned that as things stand, a shortage of skilled employees at the top end of the labour market could constrain economic growth, while the changes wrought by AI will mean the fewer number of jobs at the bottom end of the market could result in many people being out of work – a lose-lose scenario.
Schools, employers and government should therefore work to ensure the essential employment skills are well-understood, encouraged, taught, or that people are offered retraining opportunities to prevent them being trapped in declining occupations, the paper concluded.
The research is notably different from other studies into how AI will reshape the job market. Last month, Microsoft said office jobs such as sales and communication roles are among those most at risk from AI.
Also in October, it was reported that consulting firm Accenture had laid off 11,000 employees while expanding efforts to train workers to use AI.
IBM has also replaced hundreds of roles with AI systems, however, unlike Microsoft, it said it had created new jobs in sales and marketing. Meanwhile Amazon cut staff while expanding the teams that build and manage AI tools.
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