8th May 2017

Nearly half of jobs in Scotland at risk of automation by 2030

Urgent reform is needed to deal with the rapid rise of automation, a leading Scottish think-tank has said.

Urgent reform is needed to deal with the rapid rise of automation, which threatens nearly half of Scottish jobs by 2030, a leading think-tank has said. The stark warning comes in a new report published by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) in Scotland, a leading progressive think tank, and supported by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation.

The report, Scotland's Skills 2030, outlines the need to reskill Scotland's workforce for the world of work in the coming decades. With greater numbers of workers working for longer, due to demographic change, and in multiple jobs, multiple careers and for multiple employers, due to technological change, Scotland will need to retrofit the workforce with the skills required to compete in the future.

There are 2.5m working age adults today (78%) that have left compulsory education, that will still be of the working age by 2030, the study notes – adding they are likely to experience significant changes to the economy over this time, and will need support to learn new skills, retrain and upskill.

Meanwhile, just under half (46.1%) of jobs in Scotland, about 1.2m jobs, are at "high risk" of automation over the next couple of decades. The sectors most likely to be affected are transport, manufacturing and retail, the report states. This brings the need for a skills system that is able to work with people in jobs, throughout their careers, rather than solely at the start or before their careers have begun, the researchers warn.

Scotland has a clear gap in training and learning for people who have already started their careers, with a greater focus on younger people, and full-time provision in recent years. Employers are not plugging this gap, and too often pursue a low-skill business model. IPPR Scotland is calling for a new mid-career learning route, called the Open Institute of Technology, to sit alongside apprenticeships and further education, to help train the current workforce to be ready for the future challenges Scotland's economy faces, the report concludes.

Russell Gunson, Director of IPPR Scotland, said: "There are more than 2.5 million people already in the workforce today that will still be working by 2030. There are also 1.2m jobs in Scotland at risk of automation over the same time. Scotland urgently needs to design a skills system better able to work with people already into their careers to help them to retrain, reskill and respond to world of work of 2030.

"Scotland has a really strong record on skills in many ways, and in this report we find that Scotland is the highest skilled nation in the UK. However, our system has a clear gap in that we don't have enough provision for people who have already started their careers, and employers are not investing to fill this gap. To respond to the huge changes facing Scotland around demographic, technological and climate change – and of course Brexit – we're going to have to focus on retrofitting the current workforce to provide them with the skills they need, to deliver the inclusive economic growth we wish to see.

"Our report makes a number of recommendations to help Scotland plot a path through these challenges, to reform the skills system in Scotland, to help to secure an economy that delivers fairness and reduces inequality. Without reform of the skills system we could see changes to the economy harm whole sections of population, and whole communities, leaving many behind."

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