King’s College London study finds UK public more fearful than hopeful over AI and work

The first wave of a new tracker finds widespread concern over AI job losses, student preparedness, entry-level roles, and whether education systems are moving fast enough.

King’s College London research finds widespread UK concern over AI’s impact on jobs, entry-level roles, student preparedness, and the future of work.

King’s College London has published a major study showing that the UK public is more fearful than hopeful about AI’s impact on work, with seven in ten workers worried about AI-related job losses and only one in five people saying the education system is preparing young people well for an AI-shaped future.

The study, from The King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and The Policy Institute at King’s College London, surveyed the general public, young people, university students, and employers. It is being launched at the King’s AI Summit: Workforce Futures, where speakers include Baroness Martha Lane-Fox and Dame Chi Onwurah MP.

The research lands as schools, universities, employers, and EdTech providers are being pushed to respond to AI adoption that is already changing study habits, recruitment, workplace tasks, and attitudes toward graduate careers.

Public concern centers on jobs and young people

The study found that 69 percent of workers are worried about the economic impact of AI-related job losses. Concern is also high among young people at 69 percent, university students at 68 percent, and employers at 63 percent.

A majority of the public, 57 percent, thinks AI will eliminate far more jobs than it creates, leading to widespread unemployment. Employers are more positive, with 49 percent saying AI will create as many or more jobs than it eliminates.

Entry-level roles are a central concern. Most of the public and employers agree with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s 2025 prediction that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years. Agreement is highest among university students, at 63 percent.

The study also found that 22 percent of the public believes AI could eliminate jobs quickly enough to cause civil unrest. That rises to 34 percent among university students.

Half of the public says that if AI leads to widespread job losses, the economic consequences would be worse than a normal recession because AI would continue improving and taking more jobs before workers could recover. Among university students, that rises to 56 percent.

The public is less convinced by more optimistic forecasts. Only 25 percent of the public thinks it is likely that AI will eliminate around 90 million jobs globally but create nearly double that number by 2030, a prediction associated with the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025. Around half of university students and employers are more likely to accept that view, at 50 percent and 47 percent respectively.

Professor Bobby Duffy, Director of The Policy Institute at King’s College London, says: "The public, workers, young people and university students are watching the rapid development of AI with more fear than excitement, with real concern for what it will do to jobs, particularly at entry levels, and, therefore, the prospects for our young people and the economy in general.

"This is perhaps no surprise when key figures, such as Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei predicted that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within 5 years. Amodei has since painted a more optimistic picture of the labour market adapting and creating new opportunities. However, the public are much less convinced about similar claims: only a quarter agree with the World Economic Forum that AI will create twice as many jobs globally as it will eliminate by 2030.

"This, therefore, is a vision that will need to be explained, and demonstrated, to the public. It is still early days, and our baseline study shows that many don’t yet have firm views or much direct experience of AI’s impact – but that’s likely to change quickly, and we’ll need to outline clear plans on how we will adapt and support people in the transition.

"On that, the public’s instinct is move more carefully, with the majority favouring regulation and protection of jobs over fast adoption, alongside clear government and employer-backed plans for retraining. People mostly look to the government, schools and universities to help our young people adapt, but there is clearly much more to do here: for example, while a majority of university students say their university can prepare them well for an AI-shaped job market, only 36% say they currently are being well prepared."

Students are using AI, but many report problems

The study found that university students are already using AI more regularly than workers. Seventy-seven percent of university students use AI at least a few times a month, compared with 46 percent of workers. More than one in four students, 27 percent, use AI daily or almost daily.

Students most commonly use AI to help write or edit text, at 36 percent; gather and summarize information, at 32 percent; and prepare for exams, at 31 percent. Workers most commonly use AI to gather and summarize information, at 29 percent; help write or edit reports, at 28 percent; and draft communications such as emails, at 26 percent.

The problem for universities is not only usage, but reliability. Among students who use AI, 85 percent say they have encountered problems with AI-generated content. The most common issues are factual errors or inaccuracies, at 37 percent, and made-up sources, quotes, or statistics, at 31 percent.

Fewer than half of students who use AI, 43 percent, say they usually or always check and verify AI output before using it. Nineteen percent say they rarely or never verify AI output.

The study also found that 45 percent of students who had experienced AI problems said those problems caused a moderate or serious issue. For workers, the figure was 39 percent.

Attitudes toward AI and thinking are also split. Sixty percent of the public thinks AI tools are making people’s ability to think for themselves worse, but only 27 percent says this about their own thinking. Male university students are the only group more likely to say AI is improving their ability to think for themselves than worsening it. Female university students are the most likely to say AI is making their own thinking worse.

Professor Elena Simperl, Director of The King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence, King’s College London, says: "These findings tell us something important: the British public isn't asking us to slow down on AI, they're asking us to do it better. People want these tools, they want more of them, and they've used them enough to know where they fall short.

"Employers see creative thinking as the top benefit AI can offer, ahead of productivity, but the public and the experts both doubt that today's tools deliver this. That puts a real onus on those of us building and deploying AI to make systems that genuinely support learning, creativity, and critical thinking, and honestly, too few people in the sector are working seriously on this. Moreover, women seem to be more cautious about AI than men. That should make us ask who we are designing for, and who is being left out of the conversation."

The research also shows a divide between AI use and AI preparedness. Sixty percent of university students think universities can prepare them for an AI-shaped job market, but only 36 percent say their own university is doing so well.

More broadly, only 20 percent of the general public agrees that the education system is preparing young people well for a world shaped by AI. The public sees schools, the government, and universities and colleges as the main groups responsible for ensuring young people are ready for changes to work.

Employers report productivity gains and job cuts

Employers in the study are already using AI across their organizations. Ninety-two percent say they use AI in at least one area, with 56 percent using it for data analysis, 41 percent for research, and 40 percent for administrative tasks.

The main reason employers give for using AI is productivity, cited by 62 percent of those using the technology. Eighty-six percent of employers using AI say it has led to productivity improvements, split between significant improvements and modest improvements.

That view differs from workers’ own experience. Among workers who use AI, 47 percent say it makes no real difference to how good they are at their job, while 33 percent say it makes them better and 11 percent say it makes them worse.

Some employers have already changed headcount. Twenty-two percent say they have made roles redundant or reduced hiring because of AI. The figure rises to 29 percent among large organizations and 23 percent among corporate employers.

Among employers that have reduced headcount because of AI, 33 percent say it improved efficiency with no significant downsides. A similar share, 32 percent, says efficiency gains came with problems such as skills gaps, lower morale, or loss of institutional knowledge.

Employers also report pressure from the top. Sixty-four percent say investors, shareholders, or senior leadership are encouraging them to use AI tools, while fewer than one in ten say they are being discouraged.

Dr Bouke Klein Teeselink, Lecturer in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at King’s College London, says: "This survey gives a really interesting window into how British students, workers, and employers feel about AI.

"Some of the main concerns held by the public, such as fewer job openings, a contraction in entry-level roles, and increased pressure on white-collar work, echo what I find in my own research on AI and the UK labour market. But none of these effects is fixed. With the right training, policies, and institutional support, there is a clear path forward to a more hopeful future, with rising productivity, broader opportunity, higher incomes, and faster scientific progress."

The study also records strong public appetite for intervention. Sixty-six percent of the public says AI companies should be closely regulated even if that slows development and innovation. Majorities also back government-guaranteed retraining for workers displaced by AI, at 53 percent, and a tax on companies that replace workers with AI to fund retraining, also at 53 percent.

Fieldwork was carried out by Opinium between 16 and 29 April 2026 across four groups: 2,000 UK adults aged 16 and over, 1,002 GB adults aged 16 to 29, 1,000 GB university students, and 506 UK employers. The tracker’s first wave sets a baseline before employers, universities, schools, and policymakers make further decisions on AI skills, retraining, student support, and workplace adoption.