UK AI Exposure · Administrative and secretarial occupations
Company secretaries and administrators
Company secretaries (excluding professional/chartered company secretaries) file and maintain company records, translate notes and dictation into typewritten form and perform other clerical tasks within commercial organisations.
- Employees (UK)
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- Median annual pay
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- Exposure score ?
- 3.6/10 Low 9.1/10 Very high strict reading · with tools is 9.1/10 with-tools reading · strict is 3.6/10
- Wage exposure
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Higher exposure than 92% of the 379 UK occupations we scored.
What this score means
A handful of tasks in this role are touchable by AI, mostly around paperwork, scheduling and basic writing. The shape of the role stays the same - some parts just get faster.
If you're in this role, here's what to do now
Pick the two or three most repetitive things in your week and try an LLM on them. Most people underestimate what Claude or ChatGPT can already do for admin-shaped work. The time you get back is the dividend.
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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Prepare invoices, reports, memos, letters, financial statements, and other documents, using word processing, spreadsheet, database, or presentation software.
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Prepare responses to correspondence containing routine inquiries.
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Open, sort, and distribute incoming correspondence, including faxes and email.
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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Manage and maintain executives' schedules.
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Process payroll information.
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Make travel arrangements for executives.
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 "Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants" (43-6011.00).
What AI can already do
8 of 22 tasks · unaided
Prepare invoices, reports, memos, letters, financial statements, and other documents, using word processing, spreadsheet, database, or presentation software.
Prepare responses to correspondence containing routine inquiries.
Open, sort, and distribute incoming correspondence, including faxes and email.
Interpret administrative and operating policies and procedures for employees.
Read and analyze incoming memos, submissions, and reports to determine their significance and plan their distribution.
Provide clerical support to other departments.
Compile, transcribe, and distribute minutes of meetings.
Attend meetings to record minutes.
Where humans still hold the line
14 of 22 tasks
Manage and maintain executives' schedules.
Process payroll information.
Make travel arrangements for executives.
Coordinate and direct office services, such as records, departmental finances, budget preparation, personnel issues, and housekeeping, to aid executives.
Answer phone calls and direct calls to appropriate parties or take messages.
Greet visitors and determine whether they should be given access to specific individuals.
Prepare agendas and make arrangements, such as coordinating catering for luncheons, for committee, board, and other meetings.
Conduct research, compile data, and prepare papers for consideration and presentation by executives, committees, and boards of directors.
Perform general office duties, such as ordering supplies, maintaining records management database systems, and performing basic bookkeeping work.
File and retrieve corporate documents, records, and reports.
Set up and oversee administrative policies and procedures for offices or organizations.
Meet with individuals, special interest groups, and others on behalf of executives, committees, and boards of directors.
Supervise and train other clerical staff and arrange for employee training by scheduling training or organizing training material.
Review operating practices and procedures to determine whether improvements can be made in areas such as workflow, reporting procedures, or expenditures.
Tasks via O*NET "Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants" (43-6011.00).
What AI can already do
20 of 22 tasks · with tools
Manage and maintain executives' schedules.
Process payroll information.
Make travel arrangements for executives.
Prepare invoices, reports, memos, letters, financial statements, and other documents, using word processing, spreadsheet, database, or presentation software.
Coordinate and direct office services, such as records, departmental finances, budget preparation, personnel issues, and housekeeping, to aid executives.
Answer phone calls and direct calls to appropriate parties or take messages.
Prepare responses to correspondence containing routine inquiries.
Open, sort, and distribute incoming correspondence, including faxes and email.
Prepare agendas and make arrangements, such as coordinating catering for luncheons, for committee, board, and other meetings.
Conduct research, compile data, and prepare papers for consideration and presentation by executives, committees, and boards of directors.
Perform general office duties, such as ordering supplies, maintaining records management database systems, and performing basic bookkeeping work.
Interpret administrative and operating policies and procedures for employees.
File and retrieve corporate documents, records, and reports.
Read and analyze incoming memos, submissions, and reports to determine their significance and plan their distribution.
Set up and oversee administrative policies and procedures for offices or organizations.
Provide clerical support to other departments.
Compile, transcribe, and distribute minutes of meetings.
Attend meetings to record minutes.
Supervise and train other clerical staff and arrange for employee training by scheduling training or organizing training material.
Review operating practices and procedures to determine whether improvements can be made in areas such as workflow, reporting procedures, or expenditures.
Where humans still hold the line
2 of 22 tasks
Greet visitors and determine whether they should be given access to specific individuals.
Meet with individuals, special interest groups, and others on behalf of executives, committees, and boards of directors.
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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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