Full weekly executive summary of the Isle of Man job market
Baseline set: 619 active vacancies reveal an administration-heavy market with material automation exposure
Baseline set: 619 active vacancies reveal an administration-heavy market with material automation exposure
619 active jobs form the inaugural market baseline for 2026-W12. Every posting is AI-enriched, giving 100% coverage across the dataset. The average automation risk sits at 47%, while the average AI opportunity exposure score is 62.1. That means the market is not dominated by jobs that disappear under automation, but it is full of roles that will be redesigned by it. 496 roles sit in the medium-risk band, 88 in low risk, and 35 in high risk. The signal is concentration in the middle. The implication is clear: most employers are hiring for work that can be partially automated rather than fully replaced. Leaders need redesign plans, not just headcount plans. 182 jobs sit in Administration - 29.4% of all vacancies. 148 jobs sit in Finance - 23.9% of the market. Together, those two categories account for 330 roles, or 53.3% of all openings. This is a white-collar labour market first. It fits the island's economic structure, but it also concentrates exposure in process-heavy work. The task mix confirms that point. The dataset contains 2,460 augmented tasks, versus 1,470 human-only and 1,127 routine tasks. Augmented work is the largest block at 48.6% of all mapped tasks. Employers are not buying pure manual labour. They are buying judgement layered onto process, documentation and coordination.
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400 roles carry a bright outlook, equal to 64.6% of all vacancies. The baseline reveals a market where demand remains broad, but value will accrue to employers and candidates who combine human judgement with AI-enabled execution.
Salary transparency is thin. Only 74 jobs publish pay - 12.0% of the market. Where salary is disclosed, the average is £42,379 and the median is £37,204. Against average weekly earnings of £929 on the island, the disclosed annual median suggests many employers are still competing on role content and scarcity rather than open pay positioning. In a tight labour market and a high-cost housing environment, that is a weak signal to candidates.
💡 330 of 619 vacancies sit in Administration and Finance, making process-heavy office work the defining feature of the Isle of Man's inaugural jobs baseline.
Baseline Snapshot
Inaugural ReportThis is the first Smart Island market report, so it establishes the baseline rather than a movement. Future editions will track vacancy volume, category mix, automation exposure, salary disclosure, skill demand, sector concentration and closing urgency against this starting point.
619 active jobs set the inaugural benchmark from which all future market movement will be measured.
Automation Watch
The baseline shows structural automation pressure in the categories that rely on repeatable workflows. Transport carries the highest average risk at 62%, followed by Engineering at 53%, Hospitality at 52%, and Finance at 51%. Volume matters as much as risk. Finance combines elevated exposure with 143 roles, making it the most important category to redesign. At occupation level, the most exposed groups are Elementary Occupations with an average automation risk of 62% and Administrative & Secretarial roles at 59%. Those are not fringe segments. They sit close to the operational core of many island employers.
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Kitchen Porter / Glass Washer carries an automation risk of 80%. Housekeeping also sits at 80%. Cleaner reaches 78%. These are exactly the kinds of roles that should trigger a technology review before a recruitment campaign. If the work is repetitive, rules-based and labour-intensive, a platform, workflow redesign or outsourced operating model may be cheaper and more resilient than another vacancy.
High-risk examples in the live market:
- Kitchen Porter / Glass Washer - 80% automation risk
- Housekeeping - 80% automation risk
- Cleaner - 78% automation risk
- Housekeepers – Full Time, Part Time and Seasonal - 78% automation risk
- Bookkeeper - 75% automation risk
- Room Attendant / General Assistant - 75% automation risk
The counterpoint is equally important. Low-risk roles such as Salaried Portfolio General Practitioner, Chemotherapy (Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy) Nurse, Independent Non-Executive Director, and Head of Mathematics - Queen Elizabeth II High Scho all sit at 18% automation risk. These roles depend on trust, judgement, accountability and human interaction. That is where long-term labour scarcity will remain most acute - especially as hospital bed pressures and scrutiny of public service resilience stay high in local headlines.
High-risk sectors:
Skills Intelligence
Attention to Detail appears in 459 of 619 vacancies - 74.2% of the market. Teamwork appears in 377 roles and Time Management in 335. This is a labour market that still prizes execution discipline. But not all execution skills carry the same future value. The most automation-resistant skills in the dataset are the ones more common in low-risk roles than high-risk ones. Teamwork appears 86 times in low-risk jobs versus 73 in high-risk jobs. Stakeholder Management shows 57 versus 25. Critical Thinking shows 56 versus 20. Active Listening shows 62 versus 35. Project Management shows 28 versus 5. These are the skills that travel best into AI-augmented work. The most automation-exposed skills are concentrated in process-heavy roles. Attention to Detail appears 122 times in high-risk jobs versus 64 in low-risk jobs. Time Management shows 108 versus 51. Administration and Management shows 60 versus 22. Microsoft Office shows 54 versus 5. Data Analysis shows 33 versus 2. On their own, these are not differentiators. They are table stakes in work that software increasingly absorbs.
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The baseline reveals a clear divide: human coordination skills such as Stakeholder Management, Active Listening and Critical Thinking are more resilient, while process execution skills such as Microsoft Office and Administration and Management are more exposed.
Tool demand reinforces the point. Microsoft Office appears in 189 roles, Microsoft Excel in 72, and Driving in 65. These are practical employability filters, not strategic differentiators. Candidates should treat them as entry requirements and build on top with judgement, communication and delivery capability.
Top demand:
Emerging:
Sector Spotlight
148 finance vacancies make this the island's second-largest hiring category, equal to 23.9% of all active jobs. That aligns with the Isle of Man's economic base, where financial services anchor roughly 30% of national income. The opportunity is obvious: finance remains one of the island's core engines of employment and value creation. The risk is just as clear. Finance carries an average automation risk of 51%, above the market average of 47%. This is not because finance is shrinking. It is because much of the work is structured, documented and compliance-led. The top knowledge areas across the market - Reporting and Documentation at 428 roles and Regulatory Compliance at 315 - are finance-native capabilities, but they are also prime targets for AI augmentation. The skills mix shows where finance employers win. Stakeholder Management, Critical Thinking, Report Writing and Regulatory Compliance all sit in strong demand. That means the market is rewarding professionals who can interpret rules, communicate decisions and manage risk - not just process transactions. This matters for the island's growth model. The government is positioning applied AI as the route to productivity gains in a shrinking labour market. In finance, that means fewer hires for pure processing and stronger demand for judgement-rich roles that lift median wage levels rather than simply adding headcount.
- Redesign compliance-heavy roles around Regulatory Compliance, Report Writing and Critical Thinking so teams spend less time on documentation assembly and more on judgement.
- Target candidates with stakeholder capability - Stakeholder Management appears in 297 roles across the market and is materially more common in low-risk jobs.
- Use salary transparency selectively but aggressively in scarce finance skill areas, because only 12.0% of all vacancies publish pay.
- Build AI-augmented analyst pathways that combine Data Analysis, Microsoft Excel and Client Relationship Management with decision support rather than manual reporting.
For Candidates
- 01
Position yourself above process work by foregrounding Stakeholder Management, Critical Thinking and Active Listening. These skills appear more often in low-risk roles than high-risk ones - 57 vs 25, 56 vs 20, and 62 vs 35 respectively.
- 02
Treat Microsoft Office as a minimum, not a selling point. It appears in 189 vacancies, but it is also heavily concentrated in higher-risk work - 54 mentions in high-risk jobs versus 5 in low-risk jobs. Pair it with Project Management or Report Writing to stand out.
- 03
Prioritise sectors with resilient human demand such as Healthcare and selected Education roles. Low-risk examples including Salaried Portfolio General Practitioner, Chemotherapy (Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy) Nurse, and Head of Mathematics - Queen Elizabeth II High Scho all sit at 18% automation risk.
For Employers
- 01
Audit every repetitive vacancy before hiring. Roles such as Kitchen Porter / Glass Washer - 80%, Housekeeping - 80%, and Bookkeeper - 75% carry automation exposure high enough to justify a technology and workflow review before recruitment.
- 02
Rewrite job adverts around resilient skills. The market rewards Teamwork, Stakeholder Management, Critical Thinking and Active Listening, all of which are more prevalent in low-risk roles than high-risk ones. Hiring for these capabilities improves adaptability as AI adoption accelerates.
- 03
Publish pay where talent is scarce. Only 74 of 619 roles disclose salary. In an island labour market with low unemployment, rising housing costs and active work permit demand, opaque pay is a self-inflicted constraint.
Warning Signals
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Kitchen Porter / Glass Washer carries an 80% automation risk. That means the work is highly repetitive and operationally standardised. Employers posting this role should first test whether process redesign or service automation can remove the vacancy entirely.
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Bookkeeper carries a 75% automation risk despite a strong 80 AIOE score. That means the role is not disappearing overnight, but it is highly exposed to AI augmentation. Employers should hire for exception handling, stakeholder communication and control oversight - not manual ledger processing.