Exterminateeeeee – the risk of your job being automated in 20 years
21 September 2015 by Marketing Team


Recently we’ve all been talking robots! A study carried out by Oxford University and Deloitte looked at the susceptibility of our jobs today being taken over by robots in the next 20 years. Then, there was added robotic news and excitement as the Daleks appeared on the London tube last Friday, ahead of Doctors Who’s return to BBC, on Saturday…. It’s been a ‘robotic’ few days!
The office chatter will likely be about the study carried out by the researchers, who calculated the risk of 366 different jobs being automated within the next two decades. They categorised the risk from high to low of a job becoming automated, looking at the various skills which these jobs involved. The study concluded that 35% of jobs are at a high risk of being automated, concurring with a study by the Boston Consulting Group predicting that a quarter of jobs by 2025 will be carried out by either a smart software or robot.
We have been looking at the effects this may have within the legal profession. Shockingly – legal secretaries face a ‘quite likely’ 98% likelihood of automation ranking them the 3rd most likely profession according to the study to become automated in the next 20 years. ‘Legal Associate Professional’ i.e. a Paralegal face a middling risk of automation ranking 137th out of 366, at a percentage of 66% – still being categorised as ‘most likely’ by the BBC news automatic generator ‘will a robot take your job?’. Furthermore ‘Legal Professionals (other)’ examples being Solicitors to Barristers & Judges can feel safe in their seats as they come 320th out of 366, with an unlikely risk, just 3% of their role becoming automated.
We also took a look at what the future might hold for our FJG marketing team; our risk falls somewhere between ‘it’s not very likely’ and ‘its quite unlikely’ according to the BBC generator. So the good news is that there may still be a place for us in two decades and we can keep providing you with more great insights like this blog post!
So could we be looking at a future where Daleks, the Cybermen, C-3PO, R2D2 or even Wall-E will be our colleagues in 20 years time? Well we’ll have to wait and see!