Early-career workers fear AI more than their bosses, according to a new national survey, with four in five believing that the technology could soon replace humans in most areas of work.  

Polling more than 1,000 professionals across sectors, the latest Propel Tech annual survey found that 80% of UK junior staff worry about AI’s impact on their jobs, compared to 65% of senior leaders, a sign of a rapidly emerging divide over AI’s impact on the workplace.

Across three years of surveys, Propel Tech found a trend in early-career professionals’ viewing AI as deeply personal – affecting wellbeing, work quality and long-term employability. Senior leaders, by contrast, are more likely to frame AI as a strategic capability, a source of analytics, efficiency and organisational control.

This perception gap is most pronounced in sectors where AI threatens to radically change human roles. Respondents in the public sector, healthcare and education, for example, report the highest levels of concern, with up to 80% believing AI could replace jobs and 75% worried it could cause more harm than good.

Meanwhile, technology and professional services organisations report lower levels of fear, being sectors where AI is more commonly seen as an augmentation tool rather than a threat.

Geography, meanwhile, adds another layer to the perception gap, with the study revealing what amounts to a postcode lottery in how AI is experienced across the UK workforce.

While four in five professionals in the South of England report having worked on AI projects, exposure drops to around seven in ten in the North and Midlands and closer to two-thirds in Wales and Scotland, leaving up to a third of workers in some regions with little experience.

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Propel Tech said its findings highlight a “clear regional gradient” in AI outcomes. Nearly half of projects in the South, for instance, are reported as successful or progressing well, compared with around the mid-30% range in the North and Midlands, and as low as 30% in Wales and Scotland.

The firm suggests this is evidence that where AI delivers results, confidence follows, but where projects struggle or expose data weaknesses, anxiety grows, reinforcing the idea that the UK’s AI challenge is not just about adoption, but about capability, infrastructure and readiness across regional ecosystems.

”As AI adoption accelerates, the study highlights a clear lesson for business and public-sector leaders alike: closing the perception gap is as important as improving the technology itself,” said Andy Brown, co-founder at Propel Tech. “AI systems designed around real workflows, transparent trade-offs and human outcomes are far more likely to build trust than those delivered top-down.”