[OC] UK AI exposure data: clerical workers score 8.5/10 while most professionals score 6.5/10

I recently analysed UK occupation data to see which job categories appear most exposed to current-generation AI systems.

The results are probably not what most people here would predict.

Using ONS workforce data mapped to ISCO-08 occupation groups, I assigned AI exposure scores based on how much of an occupation's core task bundle can already be completed or substantially augmented by current models and automation systems.

The highest score was not software development.

It was clerical support work.

Clerical occupations scored 8.5/10 across roughly 3 million UK workers. This includes administrative assistants, receptionists, customer service representatives, data-entry workers, call-centre staff, and bookkeeping clerks.

The reason becomes obvious when you break occupations into tasks.

Modern LLMs are exceptionally good at:

• Information retrieval
• Structured communication
• Summarisation
• Classification
• Form completion
• Draft generation
• Customer interaction workflows

Those capabilities overlap directly with a large percentage of clerical work.

Professionals scored 6.5/10. That category includes lawyers, engineers, accountants, analysts, architects, and software developers.

What's interesting is that exposure and displacement aren't the same thing.

A lawyer using AI to draft contracts becomes more productive.

A customer-support department replacing a large portion of repetitive ticket handling with AI may reduce headcount entirely.

The underlying capability overlap can be similar while labour-market outcomes are very different.

The lowest-risk categories remain occupations requiring physical adaptation to unpredictable environments. Trades and elementary occupations scored between 2.0 and 2.5.

One takeaway is that AI discussion often focuses on whether models can write code. The labour-market impact may arrive first through administrative and support functions because those workflows are already highly structured and relatively easy to automate.

Curious how others here would score exposure versus actual displacement risk.

Full analysis and interactive tool in comments.