LONDON USNews: When 18-year-old Maryna Yaroshenko began researching career options last year, artificial intelligence was the deciding factor that sent her toward a plumbing apprenticeship instead of a university lecture hall.
“A skilled trade feels like the only path that AI can’t completely take over, at least not in my lifetime,” Yaroshenko said in a recent interview. “Robots are great at writing emails and crunching numbers, but they’re not coming for blocked drains anytime soon.”
Her thinking reflects a broader shift among Britain’s Gen Z workforce. A growing number of young people are turning away from traditional white-collar degrees and toward hands-on trades they believe are more resistant to automation.
New research shows the anxiety is well founded. One in six British employers now expects AI adoption to reduce the need for new hires in the coming years, while three-quarters of companies report they are already deploying AI tools primarily to increase productivity and cut labor costs.
At City of Westminster College in central London, enrollment in engineering, construction, and built-environment programs has risen 10 percent over the past three years. College principal and CEO Stephen Davis directly links the surge to AI awareness.
“Young people are being much more strategic,” Davis said. “They see the headlines about AI replacing office jobs and they’re asking themselves where they can build a career that will still exist in twenty or thirty years.”
A separate poll by the Trades Union Congress found that half of UK adults aged 25 to 35 are concerned about AI’s impact on their employment. Among younger workers just entering the labor market, that fear appears to be translating into action.
Undergraduate applications across Britain recorded a small but notable decline this year, marking the first annual drop in nearly a decade. Industry observers say the shift toward vocational training and apprenticeships is one of the clearest early indicators of how AI is reshaping career choices.
The appeal of trades goes beyond AI resistance. Britain faces a chronic shortage of plumbers, electricians, and builders as the current workforce ages and retires. That demographic reality virtually guarantees steady demand for the next generation of skilled workers.
Lecturers in the trades are blunt about the practical limits of automation. “We still need humans who are willing to get dirty,” one plumbing instructor said. “No robot on the market today is crawling under a house to fix a sewage leak.”
For Yaroshenko and thousands of her peers, the calculation is simple: office jobs that once required a degree are increasingly handled by software, while the country still needs people who can install boilers, wire buildings, and keep the water running.
As AI continues its rapid advance into workplaces, Britain’s youngest workers are voting with their applications, and many are choosing wrenches over whiteboards.
