Half of London’s businesses say their workforce does not currently have all the skills needed to meet their organisations’ requirements in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a survey of more than 2,000 business leaders.<\/p>\n
The poll, conducted by Survation on behalf of BusinessLDN, found that 50% of firms believed their existing workforce had the necessary skills and capabilities, down from 63% a year earlier.<\/p>\n
The proportion of firms reporting significant skills and capacity gaps reached 15%, up from 4% in 2025 and the highest level recorded by the annual survey.<\/p>\n
The findings come amid growing use of AI across the capital.<\/p>\n
Three-quarters of businesses surveyed said they were already using AI in some form, while only 5% said they had no plans to use the technology.<\/p>\n
Among firms already using the technology, 85% said it had changed the skills required within their workforce. According to the survey, businesses reported “with a greater need for critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and decision-making”.<\/p>\n
The survey of 2,043 business leaders from various sectors also found:<\/p>\n
35% of firms reported some skills and capacity gaps<\/p>\n
A further 12% plan to adopt AI and 8% are investigating its use<\/p>\n
60% of businesses with skills gaps lacked advanced digital skills, while 23% reported shortages in basic digital skills<\/p>\n
78% expect a significant need for advanced digital skills over the next two to five years, up from 66% last year and 56% in 2023<\/p>\n
13% expect training investment to remain unchanged and 5% expect it to fall<\/p>\n
17% of businesses reported no job vacancies<\/p>\n
20% plan to reduce staff numbers, while 76% do not expect to cut headcount<\/p>\n
Among firms planning job cuts, 25% cited cost-cutting, 24% reduced demand for entry-level staff due to AI, 23% reduced demand for mid-career staff, and 14% the economic climate or business model changes.<\/p>\n
Mark Hilton, policy delivery director for people and skills at BusinessLDN, said: “While London businesses are embracing AI, many are finding it challenging to stay on top of their workforce skills needs given the pace of change. <\/p>\n
“Positively, employers are responding by increasing investment in training, but to properly close skills gaps it is essential we have a more agile skills system that is responsive to these rapidly changing needs.”<\/p>\n
The survey found a record 81% of firms planned to increase investment in training over the coming year, up from 80% in the previous survey and 69% in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Half of London’s businesses say their workforce does not currently have all the skills needed to meet their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-651712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}