# AI Is Creating More Jobs Than It Cuts in the UK, Lloyds Finds > Source: > Published: 2026-08-18 16:29:52+00:00 *UK businesses are not telling a simple story about AI replacing workers. The sharper point is that AI is creating roles for people with current skills while making the old entry points harder to find.* A quarter of UK employers are hiring for AI skills now, and one in five are creating AI-specific roles. According to Lloyds Bank Business Barometer figures reported by Bloomberg on August 17, the survey covered 1,200 UK businesses and found that companies are putting AI into their hiring and training plans, not just their software budgets. Fifty-eight percent plan to spend more over the next year on building AI skills inside their existing workforce. That's the real story. The panic around AI and jobs has been led by American technology companies cutting staff while spending enormous sums on data centers. In Britain, the evidence is messier and more useful for you if you're hiring, looking for work, or trying to work out what skills still carry weight. Compare that with Oracle. The enterprise software giant cut 21,000 jobs in the year to May 31, taking its full-time headcount from 162,000 to 141,000, according to Oracle's annual filing reported by Bloomberg Law. The company also said the adoption and deployment of AI had led, and could continue to lead, to workforce reductions. Oracle isn't a failing business. It is moving money around, with Bloomberg reporting that its capital spending hit $55.7 billion in the fiscal year ended May 31, mostly for data center expansion. The UK numbers complicate it. [This Week in AI: Robots Take a Punch, Assistants Get Long-Term Memory, and Models Keep Getting Cheaper](https://startupfortune.com/this-week-in-ai-robots-take-a-punch-assistants-get-long-term-memory/) A dense week across robotics, model releases and AI research: humanoid robots duke it out, ChatGPT gets long-term memory, and frontier-adjacent AI keeps getting cheaper and faster. - [how to build robots that handle physical impacts](https://startupfortune.com/this-week-in-ai-robots-take-a-punch-assistants-get-long-term-memory/) - [AI models getting cheaper and more accessible features](https://startupfortune.com/this-week-in-ai-robots-take-a-punch-assistants-get-long-term-memory/) ## The jobs are moving, not disappearing cleanly Here's the thing. The Lloyds survey doesn't prove that every AI role is a net new job. A business can hire an AI product manager, train 50 staff on new tools and still cut a layer of admin work elsewhere. You should assume some of that is happening, because the wider jobs data points in that direction. Indeed shared figures with Bloomberg on August 2 showing UK job postings running about 10% below where they stood in January 2025. Software development, a field hit hard since 2022, is back in growth, with postings up 14%. But the recovery is not falling evenly. Bloomberg said much of the growth is concentrated in senior jobs and roles directly tied to AI work. Entry-level coding jobs are not the ones roaring back. Retail, manufacturing, accounting and marketing vacancies are all down by double digits, according to the same Bloomberg report on Indeed's data. Higher employment costs and a softer economy are doing plenty of the damage there. AI does not need to be the direct cause of every cut to change the outcome for workers. Fewer openings mean less room for people whose skills look ordinary on paper. That is why Indeed's researchers called it a two-speed labour market. If you need someone who can deploy AI systems, manage data pipelines or judge what a model is getting wrong, you are competing for a smaller and more experienced pool. If you are posting a generic marketing or admin role, the pile of applicants may be bigger, but the tiebreaker is changing fast. AI-adjacent skills are becoming useful even in jobs that do not have AI in the title. ## The entry-level problem is the one to watch The OECD's June report on AI and skills adds a useful check on the doom story. It found that fewer than 1% of workers need advanced AI skills, while many more need digital skills and the ability to use, analyse and interpret data. It also found that AI is raising demand for highly educated workers, with more than half of employers in manufacturing and finance reporting a greater need for them. That isn't contradiction. It is the trap. Businesses say they do not need everyone to become an AI engineer, but they increasingly want workers who can use AI well enough to make better decisions, check outputs and handle data without treating the tool like magic. The people most likely to have those habits are not usually graduates trying to get their first proper job. [Copper Hits Fresh Record Highs as AI Data Centers Push BHP Past Iron Ore](https://startupfortune.com/copper-hits-fresh-record-highs-as-ai-data-centers-push-bhp-past-iron-ore/) BHP's copper business just out-earned its iron ore division for the first time ever, and copper hit fresh record highs on the LME and COMEX this month as AI data center buildouts strain global supply. Aluminum is climbing too, though nickel has yet to break out the same way. - [AI data centers driving copper demand surge](https://startupfortune.com/copper-hits-fresh-record-highs-as-ai-data-centers-push-bhp-past-iron-ore/) - [copper shortage pushes metal to record prices](https://startupfortune.com/copper-hits-fresh-record-highs-as-ai-data-centers-push-bhp-past-iron-ore/) If you're a founder scaling a team right now, don't read the Lloyds figure as permission to relax. Read it as a warning about where the market is tightening. Training existing staff may be cheaper than fighting for the same small group of senior AI hires. It may also be fairer, because the labour market is already closing doors at the bottom while opening better-paid ones higher up. Oracle shows one version of the AI economy: fewer people, more infrastructure, bigger bets. The UK survey shows another: more training, more AI-specific roles and a scramble to work out who can actually use the tools. Both can be true at once. For workers, the practical message is blunt. AI may not take your job, but a person who knows how to use it properly may get the next one. **Also read:** [This Week in AI: Robots Take a Punch, Assistants Get Long-Term Memory, and Models Keep Getting Cheaper](https://startupfortune.com/this-week-in-ai-robots-take-a-punch-assistants-get-long-term-memory/) • [Groq Raised $350 Million to Become Nvidia's Landlord Instead of Its Rival](https://startupfortune.com/groq-raised-350-million-to-become-nvidias-landlord-instead-of-its-rival/) • [Copper Hits Fresh Record Highs as AI Data Centers Push BHP Past Iron Ore](https://startupfortune.com/copper-hits-fresh-record-highs-as-ai-data-centers-push-bhp-past-iron-ore/)