The threat to Britain no one's talking about is the generation we risk locking out.
For the first time since 2013, there are more than a million NEETS in the UK: young people who are not in education, employment or training.
The Big Four are dismantling their graduate pipelines. KPMG cut its intake by 29% last year. Deloitte by 18%. Entry-level roles requiring a degree have dropped by a third since ChatGPT launched. In tech, junior jobs are down 46% and projected to fall a further 53% this year.
The reason given, consistently, is AI.
I have a daughter and a foster son, both 20, both at university. A second daughter with an offer from Oxford. All three worried the door to meaningful work will be barred by the time they get there. And a nephew with a first-class honours and a master's degree who can't find a single opportunity to apply them. These aren't statistics. These are the young people sitting at my kitchen table, doing everything right, and wondering what it will all be for. Is this the society we want to build?
AI is part of the reason. But not all of it. Recent tax and NIC increases raised the cost of hiring entry-level workers by 7% in real terms. Businesses are making a calculation: cut junior headcount, automate the routine work, protect margins. AI gives them the tool. Policy gives them the incentive. Young people pay the price.
Here's what gets lost in the debate: the junior work being automated away isn't just a cost line. It's the apprenticeship. The first drafts. The data pulls. The client calls where you say the wrong thing once and never forget it.
The leaders who make good decisions under pressure aren't the ones with the best tools. They're the ones who spent years doing the hard, unglamorous work. Take that away and you remove the pathway that turns raw young talent into effective decision-makers.
I don't have all the answers. But I do have a couple of ideas.
Rather than eliminating entry-level roles, why don't we redesign them? Use AI to remove the pointless work and protect the work that actually builds people. The two are not the same thing.
How about measuring the value of a junior hire not by year one productivity, but by what they become in year ten?
How about taking far more seriously the fact that communication, innovation, emotional intelligence and collaboration, the things AI cannot replicate, are exactly what this generation has to offer?
History suggests that a generation that feels locked out doesn't stay quiet. It agitates.
What it agitates for is down to us.