A Lloyds Bank survey of 1,200 UK businesses found that AI has created new jobs at 54 percent of them, one of the first large employer datasets to record the technology adding roles rather than only cutting them. Lloyds did not ask whether those same firms eliminated other jobs, so the figure measures creation without netting it against loss. The direction still matters for a debate that has run mostly on displacement: 61 percent of firms reported using AI, a quarter said they are hiring more people with AI skills, and a 20% have opened roles that did not exist a year ago.
By the Numbers
54 percent of 1,200 UK firms surveyed said AI has created new jobs inside their organization (Lloyds Business Barometer, via Bloomberg, August 17).
61 percent reported using AI, and 58 percent plan to raise investment over the next year, most of it aimed at training current staff (Lloyds, via Bloomberg).
A quarter of employers are hiring more candidates with AI skills, and a fifth have created AI-specific roles (Lloyds, via Bloomberg).
Reskilling and Education
A UK employer survey records AI adding jobs, and skips the ones it took
Lloyds Bank runs a monthly Business Barometer that reads business confidence across the UK, and this week’s edition put AI questions to 1,200 companies. Fifty-four percent said AI had created new jobs inside their organization. Sixty-one percent said they now use AI in some form, and 58 percent plan to raise investment over the next year, most of it aimed at training the staff they already have. On hiring, a quarter of employers said they are bringing in more candidates with AI skills, and a fifth said they have built AI-specific roles that did not exist before.
The survey carries one plain limit. It asked whether AI created jobs; it did not ask whether AI removed any. A firm that added three AI roles and cut ten elsewhere counts as job creation here. So the 54 percent reads as one side of a ledger, useful as a floor on how much work AI generates and quiet on the net. It lands against a UK backdrop where earlier employer research had mostly tracked AI through hiring freezes and cuts, which makes an employer dataset pointing the other way worth logging even with the caveat attached.
Source: Bloomberg, “AI Is Starting to Create Jobs in the UK, Lloyds Survey Finds,” August 17, 2026, reporting the Lloyds Business Barometer.
Why it matters: Most 2026 evidence has measured AI by the jobs it removes, and this is one of the first large employer surveys to record it adding roles, even while it leaves the losses uncounted. The part a workforce planner can act on is the demand shift: a quarter of these firms already screen for AI skills and 20% have built new roles around them. Treat AI-skill hiring as a live budget line this quarter.
What Workforce Leaders Are Watching
A survey that counts AI creating jobs but never asks what it eliminated tells you half the story. How much weight does it get against payroll data that shows hiring stalling?
A quarter of these UK firms now hire for AI skills. Which roles on your own team carry an AI-fluency screen, and who inside the company gets first claim on training before you recruit outside?
Lloyds found 58 percent raising investment mostly for upskilling. Is your training budget sized to reskill the people you have, or is it a line item funding a course catalog few employees finish?
This briefing was prepared automatically by the Workforce Rewired research assistant. All stories include direct source links.