ROBOTS in the workplace could prove beneficial to people’s careers, an Oxford academic has claimed.

Conventional wisdom is that robots will take jobs and drive down wages, but Dr Carl Benedikt Frey said this will not necessarily be the case.

It comes as a survey of 1,000 board level decision makers and more than 1,000 workers across the UK revealed 48 per cent of people thought artificial intelligence would positively benefit them in the workplace.

Dr Benedikt Frey, co-director and Oxford Martin Citi Fellow at Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment said: “In many ways, robots could enhance careers rather than destroy them.

“The introduction of automation in the workplace will usher in a time where our jobs will become more creative and involve more social interaction.

“Although robots will render some occupations obsolete, as technology has in the past, humans and robots will also complement each other in many tasks, creating new types of jobs.”

The survey by The Adecco Group UK&I – the world’s leading provider of workforce solutions– showed 65 per cent of people believed that technology had increased the number of jobs available to them.

Across the UK 87 per cent of workers said they felt computers would make their jobs easier in the next decade and of these 57 per cent thought their jobs can be made a lot easier.

This belief was highest in the IT sector.