Automation of jobs through technological advances have been mooted for years but analyses have shown that progress towards this eventuality may be accelerating.

A report earlier in the year from PwC estimated that robots could take up to 30 per cent of UK jobs as soon as 2030 while the Bank of England has estimated that 15 million jobs may be at risk.

Which jobs are at risk?

Researchers at Oxford University published a widely referenced study in 2013 on the likelihood of computerisation for different occupations.

Out of around 700 occupations, 12 were found to have a 99 per cent chance of being automated in the future:

Data Entry Keyers

Library Technicians

New Accounts Clerks

Photographic Process Workers and Processing Machine Operators

Tax Preparers

Cargo and Freight Agents

Watch Repairers

Insurance Underwriters

Mathematical Technicians

Sewers, Hand

Title Examiners, Abstractors, and Searchers

Telemarketers

All these occupations share a predictable pattern of repetitive activities, the likes of which are possible to replicate through Machine Learning algorithms.