Robots threaten 15m UK jobs, says Bank of England's chief economist

Results of the Bank's study, Andy Haldane said, suggested that administrative, clerical and production tasks were most at threat

The Bank of England has warned that up to 15m jobs in Britain are at risk of being lost to an age of robots where increasingly sophisticated machines do work that was previously the preserve of humans.

Andy Haldane, the bank's chief economist, said automation posed a risk to almost half those employed in the UK and that a "third machine age" would hollow out the labour market, widening the gap between rich and poor.