“The rise of ChatGPT made me realise — I’m going to lose my interpreter job,” said Sophia Sheng. After a degree in advanced translation, the 23-year-old is now studying for a masters in management at the University of Manchester, having seen friends in the industry struggle. “I have this fear that someday a lot of jobs are going to be replaced by AI?.?.?. [That’s] why I chose to shift to a completely new field.”

Many young graduates now share Sheng’s existential fear that AI will gobble up entry-level white-collar positions and put them out of work altogether.

Dario Amodei, CEO of AI company Anthropic, warned in May that half of “administrative, managerial and tech jobs for people under 30” could vanish within five years. Big graduate employers such as BT, PwC and Microsoft are cutting jobs, while half of UK companies want to redirect money from staff to AI, according to a BCG survey published in January.