London Mayor Sadiq Khan will warn in a major speech that artificial intelligence could destroy large numbers of jobs in the capital and usher in a new era of mass unemployment unless ministers act now. In his annual Mansion House address, he is expected to argue that London is at the sharpest edge of change because of its reliance on white-collar workers in finance, creative industries, and professional services such as law, accounting, consulting and marketing.
Khan plans to highlight research suggesting that 70% of skills in the average job will have changed by 2030, with entry-level and junior roles likely to disappear first. He will argue that there is a moral, social and economic duty to ensure new jobs are created to replace those lost, and that the technology could also bring significant benefits to public services and productivity.
To address the challenge, City Hall is launching a London taskforce on AI and the future of work, drawing on expertise from government, business and the AI sector. It will also offer free AI training for Londoners. Polling by City Hall indicates that more than half of workers in London expect AI to affect their jobs in some way within the next 12 months.
Mixed views on the scale of job losses persist. A November report by the National Foundation for Educational Research suggested up to 3 million low-skilled jobs across the UK could disappear by 2035 due to automation and AI. However, Anthropic, the developer of the Claude chatbot, found that AI has a lower success rate on complex tasks and those requiring a university education, while Forrester said the impact on US jobs through to 2030 would be more modest than expected, warning of 'AI washing' as companies attribute layoffs to future AI implementation.
Khan is also expected to criticise the UK's slow response to new technology in the past, citing social media's role in a youth mental health crisis, online abuse and misinformation. Separately, Susan Langley, the mayor of the City of London, said some finance workers abroad were wary of moving to London due to safety concerns, but insisted the City is one of the safest in the world and such perceptions were unfounded.
