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Young workers gravitate to heritage crafts as AI disrupts entry roles
A Guardian Business profile highlights apprenticeships in trades like bookbinding and metalwork as companies replace parts of entry-level white-collar work with automation.
A Guardian Business report describes a growing trend among younger job seekers turning away from digital, AI-exposed career paths and toward heritage crafts such as bookbinding, metalwork and boatbuilding.
The article says that as automation increasingly displaces entry-level white-collar roles across sectors, even some creative work faces pressure from AI tools that can generate content quickly, pushing some workers to careers they view as harder to automate.
One example is Eryn Lawley, a 27-year-old politics graduate who left the digital world for a second-year bookbinder apprenticeship at Ludlow Bookbinders in Shropshire, where she learns core techniques that the report says have not changed for centuries.
The outlet also quotes Ludlow chief executive Paul Kidson, who estimates Britain has fewer than 50 operating handcraft bookbinders today and frames new interest from young apprentices as a potential lifeline for a shrinking industry.