More than six million people in the UK could lose their job to automation by 2030 and many are oblivious to the threat, a report has found.

Innovation charity Nesta warned that without “immediate action”, there’s a risk these people will be trapped in “insecure, low-value, low-pay employment” or forced out of work altogether.

The charity called for tech-based training and reskilling and anticipated the creation of new jobs for occupations that don’t currently exist.

It also said that workers whose jobs are at risk are “woefully unprepared”, with one in three not having had any formal training in the past five years and a further one in seven saying they had had no training since leaving school or college.

Currently there is a mismatch between the skills that people have and the skills that the UK economy needs. The Open University estimates that skill shortages cost the UK £2bn a year in higher salaries, recruitment costs and temporary staffing bills.

It suggests that big data and machine learning tools could be used to develop accurate insights into the kind of retraining that should be focused on.

Ksenia Zheltoukhova, of Nesta, said: “People need to know what their future holds, so they can take action to prepare. If some two-thirds of the most at-risk workers don’t know the truth of their situation, something is broken.

“We have an opportunity now to harness technology so that automation of some jobs is accompanied by creation of better ones; people need information and training to develop skills for these new jobs.”

Six million people work in jobs that are likely to change radically or disappear altogether by 2030, said Nesta. These include waiters and waitresses, shelf fillers, retail sales staff, farm workers and cleaners. Nesta surveyed 1,200 adults for the study.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady commented: “Workers whose jobs are going to be affected must have a say.

“A successful approach is the negotiation of new technology agreements between trade unions and employers. For example, a retain and re-train agreement can lead to higher skills, better jobs and higher productivity.

“We need this approach in every workplace that automation is set to change.”

A report released two years ago predicted that just 3.6m jobs would be lost by 2030, suggesting that the pace of automation may now be happening faster than was previously thought.