Workday’s AI@Work data shows UK employees among the most positive about working with AI, but cautious about delegating full tasks to agents.
Michelle Dawkins
Vice President for Solution Consulting, UKI & EMEA
Workday
UK employees are amongst the positive globally when it comes to the way AI is changing workplaces. According to our AI@Work monthly survey of 5,944 global employees (including 987 in the UK), 58% of UK workers said that AI has improved their work experience, compared with just 38% in France and 46% in Germany. Indeed the only country that the UK trails when it comes to AI positivity is Australia (59%).
Despite that optimism, UK employees recognise it may not all be plain sailing in the years to come. While more than a third (37%) said they expect AI to open up new career opportunities for them over the next 12 months, a similar proportion (34%) said they expect AI to make the skills they have today less valuable in the future.
And they’re not alone. That conflict between threat and opportunity is most pronounced among the heaviest AI users globally. Across all markets, employees who use AI the most are also the most likely to believe it will reshape their careers in both positive and negative ways.
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Clearly, the more we use AI, the more we become aware of its potential impact, both positive and negative. We recognise that it will open new doors to us while also changing the value of skills we’ve spent years honing.
It’s also apparent that communication gaps may be stoking employee uncertainty. In the UK, nearly half of workers (46%) report that their manager has not talked with them at all in the past three months about how AI is changing their role. And less than a third (30%) report having these discussions several times or regularly.
1. AI is changing our day-to-day work for the better
UK workers report a net work-experience sentiment score of +48.6 points, with 57.9% stating AI has made their day-to-day work better compared to just 9.3% who say it made it worse. This significantly outpaces the global net score of +35.9.
2. Employer trust is solid, keeping concealed AI use lower
UK employees report above-average trust in leadership, with 45% trusting their employer to deploy AI in ways that benefit workers (versus 42.0% globally). Higher trust aligns with lower concealment: only 42% of UK AI users report deliberately hiding their AI use, compared to 49% globally. Interestingly, when you look at the global findings manager and leadership groups are far more likely to conceal their AI use than individual contributors.
3. UK workers keeping humans in the loop
UK employees are more cautious about hands-off delegation. Over a third of UK users (36%) say they never let an AI tool complete a task fully autonomously. And it looks like their reticence is paying off. By keeping human reviewers in the loop, UK workers experience a slightly lower "rework tax" - the amount of time they spend having to correct work done by AI - (30%) compared to the global average (33%).
Not enough for you? No problem, here’s everything that we’re tracking month over month. Come back in October for new AI@Work insights and trends.
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