UK AI Exposure · Managers, directors and senior officials
Information technology directors
Information technology directors plan, organise, direct and co-ordinate the work and resources necessary to provide and operate IT infrastructure and services, including networks, devices, servers and software that runs on the infrastructure within an organisation. IT programme managers and directors direct and provide technical oversight to particular IT programmes of a discrete duration and/or budget.
- Employees (UK)
- 60k
- Median annual pay
- £90,081
- Exposure score ?
- 1.2/10 Minimal direct 1.2 · with tools 9.4
- Wage exposure
- £649m
Higher exposure than 61% of the 379 UK occupations we scored.
What this score means
Most of this role's work is still genuinely hard for AI to do. Physical presence, bodily skill, high-context judgment, direct human care - the things that don't translate to text.
If you're in this role, here's what to do now
You're not in the firing line today. But the frontier moves. Build enough AI fluency now that you can direct it for the parts of your work that could benefit. People in unexposed roles who understand AI become unusually valuable inside their organisations.
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.
2 of 17 tasks in this role are things an AI can already do today. Task list mapped via O*NET "Computer and Information Systems Managers" (11-3021.00).
Assign and review the work of systems analysts, programmers, and other computer-related workers.
Review and approve all systems charts and programs prior to their implementation.
Manage backup, security and user help systems.
Direct daily operations of department, analyzing workflow, establishing priorities, developing standards and setting deadlines.
Meet with department heads, managers, supervisors, vendors, and others, to solicit cooperation and resolve problems.
Review project plans to plan and coordinate project activity.
Provide users with technical support for computer problems.
Develop computer information resources, providing for data security and control, strategic computing, and disaster recovery.
Recruit, hire, train and supervise staff, or participate in staffing decisions.
Stay abreast of advances in technology.
Consult with users, management, vendors, and technicians to assess computing needs and system requirements.
Develop and interpret organizational goals, policies, and procedures.
Evaluate the organization's technology use and needs and recommend improvements, such as hardware and software upgrades.
Prepare and review operational reports or project progress reports.
Evaluate data processing proposals to assess project feasibility and requirements.
Control operational budget and expenditures.
Purchase necessary equipment.
Where a project with Alex usually starts for this role
This role's strict α score is low because its top tasks are judgment, not drafting. But those same tasks compress dramatically when AI is paired with the right context and tools. The three highest-stakes tasks below are usually where we start.
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Manage backup, security and user help systems.
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Direct daily operations of department, analyzing workflow, establishing priorities, developing standards and setting deadlines.
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Meet with department heads, managers, supervisors, vendors, and others, to solicit cooperation and resolve problems.
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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