Artificial Intelligence Driving Workforce To Data-Driven Skill Sets
The structural shift in the labour market can be attributed to the technological displacement of mid-skilled jobs. Data illustrates that employment growth has been greatest at the extreme ends of the spectrum (top and bottom 20 percent) whilst in-between there has been a decline, resulting in a hollowing out of jobs for the middle-tier workforce – becoming known as the ‘automation paradox’.
According to a 2018 report by World Economic Forum, machines and algorithms in the workplace are expected to create 133 million new roles but cause 75 million jobs to be displaced by 2020. The opportunity to be had for businesses leading the charge with AI is reshaping the existing workforce to develop more data-driven skill sets and deploying talent that can engage with automated ways of working. As businesses become ever more reliant on AI, there is an increasing amount of pressure on the processes of data capture and integration. However, the businesses that are prepared to invest heavily in AI and data analytics are already outperforming their competitors.
Top Industries Investing in AI
Agriculture
Business Support
Customer Experience
Energy
Healthcare
Intellectual Property
IT Service Management
Manufacturing
Technical Support
Retail
Software Development
The uptake of AI across multiple industries is creating ‘next generation’ jobs defined by having data skillsets at their core. Particularly, we are seeing retail, professional services, and technology industries strive to develop digital products and services that are digitally engaging, secure and instantaneous for the customer - leading to huge waves of recruitment of professionals who are skilled in implementing, monitoring and gaining the desired output from facial recognition, check-out free retail and computer vision, among other automation technologies.
Areas Expected To Drive Hiring In 2020
1. 5G
2. Edge Computing
3. Digital Twin
Job Growth & Emerging Roles
The pace of change and presence of AI and digitisation is materialising the most looking at job vacancy growth. Specialist data science & analytics roles have increased by 160 percent within medium to large companies in the UK between 2015 and 2019. Data scientist roles have surged to become mainstream professional positions, with vacancies up from just - a staggering 110 percent year-on-year increase. The same trend can be seen with Data Engineers, averaging 86 percent year-on-year growth. Job growth for information security has leveled-out after what was an active recruitment period in the lead-up to the GDPR deadline.
With sectors including cybersecurity, healthcare and manufacturing, and emerging AI businesses leading the way with recruitment, cultivating the current talent pool of applied data science and analytics professionals should be a prime concern for organisations looking to reap the gains in profitability and innovation that AI brings.
