Sadiq Khan warns one million Londoners could lose their jobs to AI

By CLAIRE ELLICOTT, WHITEHALL EDITOR FOR THE DAILY MAIL Published: 00:01, 28 April 2026 | Updated: 00:05, 28 April 2026 Sadiq Khan has warned that more than a million Londoners could lose their jobs to AI in a bleak prediction of the future of work. The London Mayor said that a fifth of the capital’s workforce was either highly or significantly exposed to the threat. This proportion is substantially higher than the risk to the rest of the country, he found in a report. In a speech on Tuesday at the Bloomberg CityLab Summit in Madrid, he is expected to warn that AI could cause ‘significant damage’ to the city’s workforce. ‘I want to be clear that a high degree of exposure to AI does not necessarily mean job losses,’ he said. ‘Our research indicates there’s every chance that AI will augment and assist the Londoners working in these roles, rather than eliminating their jobs completely. ‘But given the numbers of Londoners that are exposed – and the finding that 7per cent of large UK businesses have already used AI to cut staff – we cannot afford to be complacent. ‘As I’ve warned before, if we take a hands-off approach, AI could cause significant harm to London’s labour market.’ Sadiq Khan warns one million Londoners could lose their jobs to AI  Mr Khan published the report - entitled ‘London’s workforce exposure to generative artificial intelligence’ – on the same day as he announced a taskforce to tackle the problem. It reveals that more than 300,000 Londoners are ‘highly exposed’ with AI capable of doing a large share of their day-to-day work. A further 748,000 Londoners are deemed to be ‘significantly exposed’ with some of their jobs able to be automated by AI. Together, these two groups account for more than a million Londoners and more than a fifth of the city’s workforce. Meanwhile, at least 46per cent of London’s workers (around 2.4 million people) are in roles where AI could do a meaningful share of their tasks. This is substantially higher than the UK average of 38per cent, putting workers in the capital at greater risk. Those in administrative or clerical roles are most at risk of losing their jobs to AI but those in white-collar occupations are also highly exposed. The UK generates much of its wealth from professional services, with plentiful jobs for bankers, lawyers and accountants. Much of this is concentrated in London, and the sector as a whole accounted for 81pc of the UK’s economic output last year. Some 83per cent of British workers work in services, the highest proportion of any large rich country – including the US, at 79per cent. The report also found that women were overrepresented in administrative or clerical roles and so faced a greater threat. It found that there were some indications that employers were hiring fewer people in these roles, though this could also be a sign of a cooling labour market. Mr Khan pointed to studies cited in the report that show that AI could create more jobs than it destroys over the longer term. His taskforce, which will be headed by Baroness Martha Lane-Fox, a tech entrepreneur and co-founder of last.minute.com, will try to harness this potential. The group will also include members of the business community, trade unions, think tanks and representatives from the AI industry. The comments below have not been moderated. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.