Business
UK businesses say AI is creating jobs, not cutting them
A Lloyds survey finds 54% of UK businesses created jobs with AI, while 58% plan to increase spending on AI tools and training.
AI adoption is creating jobs at more than half of UK businesses, according to findings from the Lloyds Business Barometer. The survey says 54% of companies have already created new roles as a result of AI, challenging the dominant narrative that deployment will immediately lead to widespread job losses.
TechRadar reports that 58% of UK businesses also expect to increase their investment in AI tools and skills training over the following 12 months. The spending plans suggest companies are treating workforce development as part of AI adoption, rather than viewing new systems as a substitute for employees.
UK companies are increasing AI training budgets
Among businesses planning to raise AI investment, 42% expect to spend between £25,000 and £100,000 on tools and training. A further 26% plan to spend between £100,000 and £250,000, pointing to substantial budgets for building internal capabilities.
The need is clear: 31% of businesses say their current workforce does not have the AI skills the company requires. To address the gap, 43% of firms are introducing formal AI skills training, while 32% are expanding programs that already exist.
Hiring is a smaller part of the response. Twenty-four percent of businesses now prioritize AI skills when recruiting, and 21% are creating entirely new AI-specific roles. That split indicates that most companies are initially trying to retrain existing staff, even as some create positions dedicated to AI.
Amanda Murphy, CEO of Lloyds Business and Commercial Banking, compared the potential impact of AI with the arrival of the internet, but said technology alone would not determine which companies benefit.
“AI has the potential to be as transformative for businesses as the internet was.”
— Amanda Murphy, CEO of Lloyds Business and Commercial Banking
Murphy said success depends on developing internal skills, culture, and confidence, rather than simply buying new technology. The survey’s results support that distinction: companies are committing money to training while acknowledging that many employees are not yet equipped to use AI effectively.
Larger UK firms are moving faster than smaller competitors
The survey found that 61% of UK firms currently use AI in some form, but adoption varies significantly by company size and geographic reach. Businesses with annual turnover above £10 million report an average AI adoption rate of 79%, well above smaller and domestic-only companies.
Nearly two-thirds of those larger businesses say their workforce already has the AI skills they need. Among larger firms that are already using AI, 74% cite productivity gains as the main reason for continued and future investment.
The barriers differ by company type. Across the full sample, cost is the most common obstacle, cited by 18% of businesses. Data quality and access to skilled workers each follow at 17%.
For domestic-only firms, cost is a more pronounced concern, cited by 23%. International firms are more likely to identify data quality as their biggest barrier, at 19%. The figures suggest that companies at different stages of adoption are encountering different problems: smaller firms are more constrained by the price of implementation, while international organizations are more focused on whether their underlying data is reliable enough to support AI systems.
The competitive pressure is also uneven. Nearly six in 10 businesses believe companies that fail to adopt AI could fall behind competitors within a few years. That view is held by 73% of large firms, compared with 54% of the smallest businesses.
The Lloyds figures do not establish that AI will create more jobs than it eliminates, and they do not specify which roles are being added. They do show a more immediate shift in company behavior: UK businesses are hiring for AI in some cases, but are investing far more broadly in training existing workers and closing skills gaps that already threaten to slow adoption.