Context
This post shares the key findings from a series of staff development workshops delivered at a further education college in the north of England. In the workshop, we asked staff what they understood about how artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to impact the skills required by industry in the future. A range of curriculum areas were present, involving over 100 staff, covering many perspectives.
The findings provide a snapshot of how AI is impacting a range of vocational areas. In some cases, many AI-related skills are already in use, but in others, there is an expectation of how skills might change.
How is AI impacting the job market?
It was clear from the rich discussions in the workshops with FE staff that the impacts varied across subject areas and industries. This is reflected in the findings of the Department for Education’s The impact of AI on UK jobs and training report, published November 2023, where the impacts are also mixed. This also helps to explain why some staff in colleges are further ahead with AI than others. For many staff, AI is already changing the way they work; for others, it’s not yet seen as relevant to their roles.
Relevance is key for staff buy-in. Interestingly, there are a range of more general data literacy skills that cut across many vocational areas, and then there are unique skills that are tailored to specific careers. How can college leaders plan and prioritise addressing this skills disparity with staff? This post unpacks some of these examples, gauging the likely impacts and mapping to the relevant curriculum areas.
Areas with little impact
There was a perception that AI’s not going to impact some industries much in certain subject areas. This was the prevailing view in trades where there’s a strong practical element, such as hairdressing, construction, electrical installation and plumbing. Certain vocational areas involve a lot of manual work, and assessment for these courses focus more on practical elements than essays. This chimes with Sarkar’s article (2020) that AI can do some things much better than others, with motor skills being particularly problematic (also borne out in the cited DfE report).
There’s also the issue that specifications and standards from regulatory bodies vary from country to country. Users need to exercise caution when using generative AI to produce guidance, especially in construction, where incorrect guidance for operating equipment and machinery could pose health and safety concerns. Although staff considered AI’s impact to be minimal in the main duties of these professions, there was agreement that AI could play a role relieving the administrative burden. Even freelancers working in construction, hairdressing, and so on have to write their own marketing and customer service content.
For these more practical subjects, AI has been used to help with lesson planning and the drafting of revision activities for learners.
Areas with medium impact
Industries with an IT component where tasks involved working with, and understanding, data agreed that AI was making an impact. Most jobs involve administrative tasks, and there are plenty of examples of how AI can boost your productivity. AI has played a key role in supporting writing skills, especially in correcting grammar, helping with tone, and providing inspiration for content. It’s also saved staff time by summarising content, such as lengthy reports, or helping to structure guides and streamline workflows. Many subject areas benefit from these gains, such as Business, IT and Media.
There are also a range of specific examples from individual vocational areas, such as:
- Tour operators using chatbots for customer service (Leisure and tourism)
- AI supporting writing bids/ proposals for vendors (Business / procurement)
- Creating AI voice overs, either with audio or video (Media)
- Image manipulation, understanding how AI is used to create new images or enhance existing ones, with tools like Adobe Sensei already embedded into Photoshop / Lightroom, etc (Photography)
- Customer service recommendations, writing marketing material, recruitment advertisements, personal development plans, team skills, managing an event (General)
Areas with high impact
Finally, there are subjects where AI excels. These are disciplines where AI has the most proven examples of worth or are completely changing how people work. AI has been used in healthcare for some time where it can streamline diagnostic testing. In many IT subjects, such as games design, AI can play a controversial role creating artwork, artefacts, and characters, through 3D modelling and coding. In the latter there are claims that AI can pose an existential threat to game developers in some cases.
However, the changes don’t always have to include advanced technical skills to make a big difference. One engineering lecturer cited using AI to change a lengthy text file to an audio file, giving a student with reading difficulties a new way to access content. This made a huge difference for the individual student. Indeed, AI can be instrumental in providing a more inclusive learning experience.
Other specific examples include:
- Creating entirely new roles within the sector to analyse crime scene data (Criminology)
- Coding chatbots used to teach STEM activities to children (Early years education)
- Chatbots used to diagnose initial queries/problems (IT support)
Reflections
When we talk about impacts, it’s important to acknowledge that these can come with challenges. There are many considerations to take into account, and Jisc’s generative AI primer is a good starting point to explore these limitations further.
Forecasting AI’s impact on the future job market is always going to be a challenge. A degree of aspirational thinking and speculation is inevitable. In fact, one of the participants in the workshop said it best when I asked how AI is likely to affect jobs in their vocational area: “I don’t know, but I don’t know what I don’t know.” We are seeing new and innovative uses for AI surface all the time, in ways we cannot yet begin to anticipate. It’s vital that staff tasked with developing learner skills are given the opportunities to explore AI properly. It’s the only way to build confidence and a responsible and informed approach to AI.
