UK AI Exposure · Elementary occupations
Elementary administration occupations n.e.c.
Job holders in this unit group perform a variety of elementary clerical and administrative tasks within offices not elsewhere classified in minor group: 921 Elementary administration occupations.
- Employees (UK)
- 23k
- Median annual pay
- £23,005
- Exposure score ?
- 4.7/10 Moderate direct 4.7 · with tools 7.0
- Wage exposure
- £249m
Higher exposure than 95% 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.
The tasks in this role, ranked by AI exposure
Below are the real tasks O*NET records for this occupation, sorted highest exposure first. "AI can do this" means a language model can already handle the task directly. "AI can help" means an LLM can assist but not replace. "Human work" means today's AI doesn't touch it. Importance is O*NET's 1–5 rating of how central each task is to the role.
12 of 19 tasks in this role are things an AI can already do today. Task list mapped via O*NET "File Clerks" (43-4071.00).
Perform general office activities, such as typing, answering telephones, operating office machines, processing mail, or securing confidential materials.
Keep records of materials filed or removed, using logbooks or computers and generate computerized reports.
Input data, such as file numbers, new or updated information, or document information codes into computer systems to support document and information retrieval.
Gather materials to be filed from departments or employees.
Track materials removed from files to ensure that borrowed files are returned.
Add new material to file records or create new records as necessary.
Sort or classify information according to guidelines, such as content, purpose, user criteria, or chronological, alphabetical, or numerical order.
Eliminate outdated or unnecessary materials, destroying them or transferring them to inactive storage, according to file maintenance guidelines or legal requirements.
Answer questions about records or files.
Assign and record or stamp identification numbers or codes to index materials for filing.
Design forms related to filing systems.
Modify or improve filing systems or implement new filing systems.
Complete general financial activities, such as processing accounts payable, reviewing invoices, collecting cash payments, or issuing receipts.
Find, retrieve, and make copies of information from files in response to requests and deliver information to authorized users.
Scan or read incoming materials to determine how and where they should be classified or filed.
Place materials into storage receptacles, such as file cabinets, boxes, bins, or drawers, according to classification and identification information.
Perform periodic inspections of materials or files to ensure correct placement, legibility, or proper condition.
Retrieve documents stored in microfilm or microfiche and place them in viewers for reading.
Operate mechanized files that rotate to bring needed records to a particular location.
Where a project with Alex usually starts for this role
These are the highest-importance tasks in this role that a language model can already handle directly. 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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Perform general office activities, such as typing, answering telephones, operating office machines, processing mail, or securing confidential materials.
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Keep records of materials filed or removed, using logbooks or computers and generate computerized reports.
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Input data, such as file numbers, new or updated information, or document information codes into computer systems to support document and information retrieval.
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 →
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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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