PR and marketing sees sharpest UK job losses as AI skills demand rises
A new workforce study from IT support firm Hamilton Group finds that PR, advertising and marketing has shed almost half its job vacancies since 2019 even as demand for AI skills in the sector grows.
AI reshaping UK job market
A new study by IT support provider Hamilton Group has identified the UK industries where growing demand for artificial intelligence skills is coinciding with the steepest falls in job vacancies. The research draws on Office for National Statistics job advert data from 2019 to 2025, alongside current job postings, to measure how AI intensity correlates with declining hiring.
The World Economic Forum has previously estimated that 30 million jobs globally could be replaced by AI, and the Hamilton Group study set out to see where that trend is most visible in the UK labour market.
PR and marketing tops the list
PR, advertising and marketing recorded the highest “adoption score” of 100 out of 100, the measure the study uses to rank the correlation between rising AI demand and falling vacancies. The sector’s job postings fell from 358,620 in 2019 to 180,858 in 2025, a drop of nearly 50%. A quarter of current vacancies in the field ask for AI skills, and those roles pay a 23.8% wage premium.
IT ranked second, with vacancies down 55.5% over the same period, from more than 1.2 million to 554,939. More than a third of IT job postings now mention AI skills, the highest proportion of any sector studied, with a 20% associated wage premium.
Sales came third. Although only around one in ten sales vacancies mention AI skills, those that do offer the largest wage premium in the study at 63.3%. Sales vacancies fell by 37.7% between 2019 and 2025, a smaller decline than the top two sectors.
HR and recruitment placed fourth, with a 40.7% fall in vacancies and a 54.6% AI wage premium, despite AI being mentioned in fewer than one in ten postings. Creative and design rounded out the top five, with vacancies down 43.6% and AI-related postings offering a 31.6% premium.
Other sectors covered in the study include accounting and finance, scientific and quality assurance roles, consultancy, customer services and legal, all of which showed lower adoption scores but still recorded significant falls in vacancies since 2019.
Impact on younger workers
A job analyst from Hamilton Group said workers in the most AI-exposed occupations tend to be younger and earlier in their careers, and that hiring of younger workers in these roles has slowed by roughly 14% compared with 2022. The analyst added that graduate vacancies in UK marketing have fallen to their lowest level since 2020, with entry-level roles increasingly automated or eliminated, removing routes through which junior staff traditionally built experience and progressed into senior positions.
The full findings are available via Hamilton Group’s published report, with the company asking that any use of the data credit its website.