Technology Adoption and Evolution of Skill Requirements

Supervisors: Dr Catia Nicodemo

This project focuses on analysing the impact of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies on the UK labour market, particularly examining how these technologies are transforming skill requirements across various sectors in particular the healthcare sector. We aim to identify patterns of technology adoption and their effects on the demand for skills, addressing critical knowledge gaps in our understanding of evolving labour market dynamics.

 The ideal candidate should have strong skills in working with text data and machine learning, as they will be analysing millions of job advertisements using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. Experience in statistical is necessary. We are looking for someone with a background in economics, data science, or a related field who is comfortable with data cleaning, preprocessing, and applying sophisticated analytical techniques to extract meaningful patterns from large datasets.

This research is part of a larger program in collaboration with the National Robotarium, studying the transformative potential and challenges posed by Robotics and AI on UK society. The project offers an opportunity to contribute to high-impact publications in leading economics journals and to present findings at prestigious conferences.

The successful candidate will work with a dataset of job advertisements from Adzuna, spanning from 2017 to 2024, and will integrate this with data from other sources such as the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS). They will be involved in stakeholder engagement activities, including consultations with policymakers, industry leaders, and educators.