The jobs that are doomed (and the jobs that will boom) in 2024
For many, along with the New Year resolutions and feelings of optimism for things to come, January is the time to consider changing jobs.
But sadly for them, January 2024 might not be the best time to go job hunting. After a period of steady growth throughout the first half of last year, salaries and vacancies fell significantly in the last six months.
For the first time since 2021, in fact, the number of UK vacancies has slumped below one million. “As we head into 2024, finding a job will likely stay tough for the first part of the year,” said Andrew Hunter, of job search engine Adzuna.
However, January is still a sensible month to look for new opportunities, according to Indeed, another job site. Hannah Keiling, of the website, said: “The new year inspires hiring managers to accomplish the tasks they’ve been putting off. Much of that inspiration originates from updated budgets that allow managers to make important decisions, such as hiring additional staff members.”
Last year has proven a turbulent time for the jobs market: at the start of 2023, jobseekers benefited from the highest availability of jobs and advertised salaries since 2021, according to Adzuna data.
But as sectors tighten their belts and artificial intelligence worms its way into workplaces, which jobs are set to dominate 2024, and which industries are already doomed? Telegraph Money crunched the numbers and asked the experts.
Roughly a year has gone by since the general public was given access to ChatGPT, the generative AI capable of churning out anything from improvised poetry to advanced code.
Quickly, the software was seized on by employers, and before the year was up artificially intelligent holograms were being marketed to companies looking to replace customer service staff with chatbots.
Jack Kennedy, Indeed’s chief economist, said that jobs to do with creating or using AI would continue to be popular in 2024. “As of the end of October, the share of UK job postings on Indeed mentioning terms related to generative AI stood at 0.05pc, a 26-fold increase since the start of the year,” he added.
“Though only five in 10,000 job postings mean genAI jobs aren’t yet common, they’re likely to continue to grow rapidly in 2024 and beyond as organisations integrate these tools into their businesses.”
Specific job titles to do with AI are already starting to emerge, according to Adzuna, adding that prompt engineers, AI ethics officers, and AI auditors are expected to be common job roles in the near future.
But the impact of AI has had a devastating effect on some workers in the tech industry. Listed salaries for ethical hackers (who test companies’ online security), for example, are half of what they were last year. Across a similar number of vacancies advertised, pay fell from £89,888 to £41,417.
If you believe Elon Musk, AI could one day replace the need for jobs entirely. In conversation with Rishi Sunak earlier this year, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, said: AI would be “the most disruptive force in the industry for jobs”, claiming that “there will come a point when no job is needed – you can have a job if you want to for personal satisfaction”.
A study by PwC found half a million British workers fear AI will impact their jobs within the next five years, while investment bank Goldman Sachs predicted AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs globally in the coming years.
Some specialist jobs remain insulated from the threat of AI, however. Advertised salary data analysed by Adzuna this year found specialist medical professionals were less likely to have seen their pay impacted.
Average salaries for oncologists were £208,942 a year in June, compared to £194,510 last year – an increase of 7.4pc. Orthodontists, paediatricians, surgeons, and midwives also scored highly, with advertised salaries ranging from £55,000 to £100,000.
Roles requiring subjective reasoning, including judges and politicians, were similarly deemed safe from the AI revolution.
MPs are paid £86,584 a year, for example, and while judge vacancies are not advertised on job sites, they can expect to earn salaries far above £100,000. Adzuna listed 731 vacancies for chief executive positions in June; however, average pay had dropped by 4.6pc year-on-year – from £85,143 to £81,205.
Blue-collar workers were also found to be safe from automation. Surfacing, and tamping equipment operators (average salary £85,800), overhead line workers (£51,886) and brick masons (£50,345) dominated the higher end of the ranking. Oil rig workers, crane drivers, and carpenters were also found to be resilient.
The pandemic triggered a rise in demand for cleaners and drivers, but even in a post-lockdown world, the demand for such roles has remained high, according to Indeed.
The increase in working from home has also not had as much of an impact on people-facing jobs as initially feared. “Receptionist positions, for example, have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels after a low in January 2021,” said Mr Kennedy. “Office manager roles are slightly down, but not significantly.”
Telegraph analysis of earnings data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that a number of industries have benefited from substantial pay rises in the years since the pandemic. The median pay for a senior police officer rose from £34,000 to £59,000 between 2021 and 2023 – an increase of 36pc – the data showed.
Similarly, the pay for early years staff and metal working machine operatives rose by 17pc and 15pc respectively in the same period.
However, early years staff have not been historically well remunerated. The median pay for an early education and childcare service manager was just £18,000 in 2021 – rising to £22,000 in 2023 – according to the ONS.
The low pay for early years staff has prompted fears of an exodus from the sector: a study by the Early Education and Childcare Coalition (EECC) and the University of Leeds found six in 10 nursery staff were contemplating quitting their jobs in the next year because of concerns over pay, poor training and dead-end career progression.
The dissatisfaction among nursery staff bodes ill for Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s plans to provide 30 hours of free childcare for all under-fives from the point maternity leave ends for all those eligible at the time of this year’s spring Budget.
Under current conservative predictions, the number of childcare places in England would need to expand by 6pc to meet the demand.
At the time, Sarah Ronan, director of EECC, said: “If the Government is to have any chance of delivering this expansion, it must listen to the people on the ground educating and caring for our children. Years of underfunding have left them underpaid, overworked and feeling disrespected.”
Telegraph analysis of official figures identified industries where pay had remained solid, or even increased, but the number of workers had plummeted by as much as 50pc in the past five years. Among them were prison officers, who had seen a 26pc rise in earnings, and a drop of 52pc in the number of workers.
Mark Fairhurst, national chairman of the Prison Officers’ Association, said several factors were to blame. Chiefly, the training course for prison officers lasts just six weeks, cut from nine weeks to get “boots on landings” more quickly, he said.
Mr Fairhurst added: “It doesn’t prepare them for the reality of the job. But if you’re 18 and earning £30,000 a year, you’re living like a millionaire, but you’ll only last a couple of years.”
A long wait to access the state pension was also cited as a reason why prison officers rarely serve more than a few years, said Mr Fairhurst, adding that a voluntary exit scheme in the mid-2010s led to a mass exodus of staff.
“We have over 11,100 vacancies, and for every four recruits we only keep one,” he said.
Though starting salaries of around £30,000 for prison officers can be attractive to 18-year-olds, pay rises are meagre. “We can’t compete. After seven years as a police officer, you’d be on £47,000, but after that time as a prison officer you’d be on £34,000, if you’re lucky.”
Similar issues plague the veterinary sector, which has been heavily burdened with demand due to the expansion of “pandemic puppies” as families in lockdown bought pets to keep them occupied.
Malcolm Morley, senior vice-president of the British Veterinary Association, said staff shortages had been compounded by Brexit. “We’ve lost a lot of experienced overseas vets,” he said. “Every year before Brexit we had more EU vets in the UK than British grads, but that’s really dropped.”
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Now, EU citizens hoping to work in the sector must sit an exam and have a visa to work in Britain. But the retention of vets has always been an issue, said Mr Morley.
“Vets have to deal with unrealistic expectations from pet owners,” he said. “British people are used to high standards of healthcare for free through the NHS, so there are challenges.
“But ultimately it takes five years to do a veterinary science degree, so there is no untapped reserve of vets.”
The advent of flexible working has meant more and more veterinary staff are working part-time, which has been a benefit to a profession in which the majority of workers are women who can now more easily balance childcare responsibilities.
However, the demise of full-time work as the default model has exacerbated staff shortages in veterinary practices, Mr Morley said.
As with prison officers, salaries have also failed to keep pace with similar lines of work. “Vets are still not well numerated for their hours,” said Mr Morley. “Medicine and dentistry are also five-year degrees and pay far better.”
ONS figures showed there had been a decline of 43pc in workers in the past five years, despite pay increasing by 12pc.
“At the moment it looks like pay has held up quite well,” said Mr Morley. “But a lot of that relates to the fact it was historically low.”
