This year’s UK graduation season has collided with sobering headlines: graduate job openings are down over 20%, with the sharpest drops in entry-level roles across law, consulting and tech. It’s tempting to attribute this slump to broader economic uncertainty or to the knock-on effects of tax reforms. But that would miss the deeper shift already underway. The graduate job market is not just a casualty of the current moment – it’s at the front line of the accelerating AI transition.
We’re watching a quiet restructuring of the early-career landscape unfold. Tasks that used to form the core of entry-level jobs – such as research, first drafts, analysis or admin – are increasingly being done by machines. In many industries, what was once a team of ambitious graduates is now a single experienced employee using generative AI. These changes might make operational sense in the short term, but we’re only just beginning to understand the long-term cost of removing the rung where people first get their start.
This shift is not theoretical. At the One Young World Summit in Montréal last September, Yoshua Bengio, one of the godfathers of AI, appeared on stage with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Of all the topics the outgoing Canadian leader could have chosen to address with the young people present, he chose artificial intelligence. That decision speaks volumes about the scale and urgency of the transition we’re facing.
Bengio’s message was unflinching: we are not ready for what’s coming and the systems we’re building may soon outpace our capacity to govern them. “We don’t have methods to make sure that these systems will not harm people or will not turn against people,” he warned: “We don’t know how to do that.”
Early-career talent stuck in catch-22
We’ve told young people for years to focus on skills that can’t be automated. But what we’re witnessing is not simply a gap between supply and demand, it’s a crisis of trust. Students are graduating into a system where qualifications no longer guarantee opportunity and where the very technologies they’re encouraged to master are eating away at the jobs they trained for.
Caught in a cycle of rejection that crushes confidence, graduate jobseekers are stuck in a catch-22; they feel they have to use AI to compete, but, on the other hand, some recruiters brag about their ability to detect AI in applications and discount candidates they believe to have used it.
The implications go far beyond employment. Work is a key engine of social mobility, identity and civic participation. If we remove the first stages of the career ladder, we risk losing a generation’s trust – not just in the job market, but in the broader institutions that shape our societies.
At One Young World, we increasingly hear from our corporate partners – the companies most engaged with emerging talent – that they want to collaborate with us on this challenge. They know that preserving originality, credibility and trust isn’t a sideline to business success, it’s central to it. That’s why initiatives like the AI for Good Scholarship with The Brandtech Group and the Building Tomorrow Scholarship with Holcim are so important. They spotlight young leaders deploying AI to promote sustainability, equity and resilience, using the technology not just because it exists, but because it serves a purpose.
HR’s role in reshaping early careers
If you are a people leader today, this is your cue. The graduate recruitment squeeze is not a passing blip: it’s a warning of what happens when we treat early-career talent as a cost centre and a reminder to recognise them as essential to long-term growth and innovation. That means redesigning entry-level roles with intention, not elimination. It means using AI to empower people, not displace them. It means open and regular company-wide consultations on opportunities and obstacles that arise and crystal-clear expectations around when and how to use AI.
Preserving originality, creativity and critical thinking requires clarity. It also requires a cultural shift that gives young people permission to sound like themselves.
And this responsibility cannot sit with HR departments alone. Most aren’t equipped to navigate the full scope of these changes – very few people are. What’s needed now is a collaborative, wholehearted effort across sectors. Education, government, business and civil society all have a role to play in ensuring that AI adoption doesn’t come at the cost of a generation’s potential.
We need to walk and chew gum at the same time. We must protect jobs today while building credible talent pipelines for tomorrow. That means upskilling for an AI-driven world, yes, but it also means safeguarding the early-career opportunities that make long-term careers possible. Innovation and inclusion cannot be opposing forces. If we get this right, we won’t just future-proof our companies, we’ll future-proof our workforce.
Ella Robertson McKay is managing director of One Young World.
This year’s UK graduation season has collided with sobering headlines: graduate job openings are down over 20%, with the sharpest drops in entry-level roles across law, consulting and tech. It’s tempting to attribute this slump to broader economic uncertainty or to the knock-on effects of tax reforms. But that would miss the deeper shift already underway. The graduate job market is not just a casualty of the current moment – it’s at the front line of the accelerating AI transition.
We’re watching a quiet restructuring of the early-career landscape unfold. Tasks that used to form the core of entry-level jobs – such as research, first drafts, analysis or admin – are increasingly being done by machines. In many industries, what was once a team of ambitious graduates is now a single experienced employee using generative AI. These changes might make operational sense in the short term, but we’re only just beginning to understand the long-term cost of removing the rung where people first get their start.
This shift is not theoretical. At the One Young World Summit in Montréal last September, Yoshua Bengio, one of the godfathers of AI, appeared on stage with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Of all the topics the outgoing Canadian leader could have chosen to address with the young people present, he chose artificial intelligence. That decision speaks volumes about the scale and urgency of the transition we’re facing.
