TL;DR

Half of Scottish teenagers say AI has already changed how they think about their careers, and 55% are deliberately chasing skills they believe the technology cannot replicate. The research, from Opinion Matters for Glasgow Kelvin College, covers 517 pupils aged 13 to 18.

Asked which jobs are AI-proof, plumbing came top on 31%. Electricians and hairdressers or barbers tied on 30%, nursing took 29%, and mechanic and social worker shared 27%. Chef and engineer followed on 26%, with joiner and teacher on 23%. Only 1.7% thought no career was safe.

Confident and worried at once

The attitudes are not straightforwardly anxious. A slim majority, 54%, see AI as an opportunity for their prospects, and 60% are keen to learn skills that work alongside it. Yet 56% also worry about the effect on their careers and the same share think it will make finding work harder. Those groups plainly overlap.

Usage is routine rather than occasional: half use AI daily, 9% three or more times a day, and — striking for this age group — half pay for a premium service. A third use it to look things up, 29% for schoolwork and 26% for revision, with creative work, writing help and coding behind those.

There is a scepticism dividend too. Almost two thirds say AI has made them question what they see online more often.

Looking forward

The pattern these teenagers have identified matches what the Bank of England found this morning in vacancy data: the sharpest declines in UK job adverts are in customer service and administration, down 23% and 22%, while manual and care work holds up. Sixteen-year-olds reading the labour market correctly is not reassuring — it suggests the signal is obvious enough to reach schools. The risk is a cohort steering away from office work just as the diamond-shaped workforce needs people who can supervise these systems.