UK AI Exposure · Associate professional occupations
Authors, writers and translators
Authors, writers and translators write, edit and evaluate literary material for publication excluding material for newspapers, magazines and other periodicals but including scripts and narrative for film, TV, radio and computer games and animations; and translate spoken and written statements into different languages.
- Employees (UK)
- 20k
- Median annual pay
- £36,865
- Exposure score ?
- 5.4/10 Moderate 9.5/10 Very high strict reading · with tools is 9.5/10 with-tools reading · strict is 5.4/10
- Wage exposure
- £398m £700m
Higher exposure than 96% of the 379 UK occupations we scored.
What this score means
A meaningful slice of the task inventory is AI-reachable - the drafting, summarising, research and analysis parts especially. This role is at the point where the people who learn to direct AI well pull ahead of the people who don't.
If you're in this role, here's what to do now
Treat AI as a colleague you manage, not a tool you use. Identify the tasks where you'd describe the work to a capable junior - those are the tasks AI can do for you now. Spend your time on the judgment calls and the relationships instead.
Almost every routine task in this role is within reach of today's language models. Roles at this level are getting rebuilt - often not by disappearing, but by one person using AI to do three or five people's output.
If you're in this role, here's what to do now
You don't need to be afraid. You need to be the person doing the rebuilding. The operators who learn to direct AI at scale in this kind of work become hugely valuable. The ones who wait to be told what to do get told what to do - and that thing is often 'we don't need as many of you anymore.'
Where a project with Alex usually starts for this role
These are the highest-importance tasks a language model can already handle directly today. In a typical engagement the first wins come from building workflows around these, so they stop eating your team's time.
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Read copy or proof to detect and correct errors in spelling, punctuation, and syntax.
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Read, evaluate and edit manuscripts or other materials submitted for publication, and confer with authors regarding changes in content, style or organization, or publication.
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Develop story or content ideas, considering reader or audience appeal.
These are the highest-importance tasks AI can already handle when paired with the right tools and context. In a typical engagement the first wins come from building workflows around these — usually the difference between an LLM that can technically do the job and one that actually does it inside your business.
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Read copy or proof to detect and correct errors in spelling, punctuation, and syntax.
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Verify facts, dates, and statistics, using standard reference sources.
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Read, evaluate and edit manuscripts or other materials submitted for publication, and confer with authors regarding changes in content, style or organization, or publication.
Every role has three or four wedges like these. Finding them takes an hour. Turning them into a workflow your team actually uses takes a few days. Talk to Alex about a project →
The full task breakdown
Every O*NET task for this occupation, split by what AI can already do unaided versus what still needs a human. Importance is O*NET's 1–5 rating of how central each task is to the role.
Tasks via O*NET "Editors" (27-3041.00).
What AI can already do
7 of 21 tasks · unaided
Read copy or proof to detect and correct errors in spelling, punctuation, and syntax.
Read, evaluate and edit manuscripts or other materials submitted for publication, and confer with authors regarding changes in content, style or organization, or publication.
Develop story or content ideas, considering reader or audience appeal.
Prepare, rewrite and edit copy to improve readability, or supervise others who do this work.
Write text, such as stories, articles, editorials, or newsletters.
Make manuscript acceptance or revision recommendations to the publisher.
Read material to determine index items and arrange them alphabetically or topically, indicating page or chapter location.
Where humans still hold the line
14 of 21 tasks
Verify facts, dates, and statistics, using standard reference sources.
Oversee publication production, including artwork, layout, computer typesetting, and printing, ensuring adherence to deadlines and budget requirements.
Supervise and coordinate work of reporters and other editors.
Monitor news-gathering operations to ensure utilization of all news sources, such as press releases, telephone contacts, radio, television, wire services, and other reporters.
Confer with management and editorial staff members regarding placement and emphasis of developing news stories.
Plan the contents of publications according to the publication's style, editorial policy, and publishing requirements.
Review and approve proofs submitted by composing room prior to publication production.
Select local, state, national, and international news items received from wire services, based on assessment of items' significance and interest value.
Allocate print space for story text, photos, and illustrations according to space parameters and copy significance, using knowledge of layout principles.
Direct the policies and departments of newspapers, magazines and other publishing establishments.
Assign topics, events and stories to individual writers or reporters for coverage.
Meet frequently with artists, typesetters, layout personnel, marketing directors, and production managers to discuss projects and resolve problems.
Arrange for copyright permissions.
Interview and hire writers and reporters or negotiate contracts, royalties, and payments for authors or freelancers.
Tasks via O*NET "Editors" (27-3041.00).
What AI can already do
20 of 21 tasks · with tools
Read copy or proof to detect and correct errors in spelling, punctuation, and syntax.
Verify facts, dates, and statistics, using standard reference sources.
Read, evaluate and edit manuscripts or other materials submitted for publication, and confer with authors regarding changes in content, style or organization, or publication.
Develop story or content ideas, considering reader or audience appeal.
Prepare, rewrite and edit copy to improve readability, or supervise others who do this work.
Oversee publication production, including artwork, layout, computer typesetting, and printing, ensuring adherence to deadlines and budget requirements.
Write text, such as stories, articles, editorials, or newsletters.
Supervise and coordinate work of reporters and other editors.
Monitor news-gathering operations to ensure utilization of all news sources, such as press releases, telephone contacts, radio, television, wire services, and other reporters.
Confer with management and editorial staff members regarding placement and emphasis of developing news stories.
Plan the contents of publications according to the publication's style, editorial policy, and publishing requirements.
Review and approve proofs submitted by composing room prior to publication production.
Select local, state, national, and international news items received from wire services, based on assessment of items' significance and interest value.
Allocate print space for story text, photos, and illustrations according to space parameters and copy significance, using knowledge of layout principles.
Make manuscript acceptance or revision recommendations to the publisher.
Direct the policies and departments of newspapers, magazines and other publishing establishments.
Assign topics, events and stories to individual writers or reporters for coverage.
Arrange for copyright permissions.
Interview and hire writers and reporters or negotiate contracts, royalties, and payments for authors or freelancers.
Read material to determine index items and arrange them alphabetically or topically, indicating page or chapter location.
Where humans still hold the line
1 of 21 tasks
Meet frequently with artists, typesetters, layout personnel, marketing directors, and production managers to discuss projects and resolve problems.
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Methodology
This role's exposure score comes from Eloundou et al's 2023 GPT task labels, aggregated by O*NET importance within each O*NET-SOC code, then bridged to UK SOC 2020 via ISCO-08 (ONS Vol 2 coding index) and US SOC 2010 (BLS crosswalk). Employment and median pay come from ONS ASHE Table 14.7a, 2025 provisional. ASHE covers employees only, so self-employed workers are not counted.
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