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Why the career ladder you were climbing has come apart, and what to do about it.
Your job title may still be intact. The meetings continue; the monthly presentation still needs producing. But AI is already taking on the reporting, coordination, research and analysis work that once justified whole teams. The change seldom arrives with a dramatic announcement. It’s more insidious than that: the hire is paused, the contractor is not renewed, the promotion evaporates.
Written by someone building the tools behind this shift, The Next Rung looks at the knowledge-work middle: project leads, analysts, account managers, operations teams and managers whose jobs depend on orchestration. It traces the pressure from boardroom economics to kitchen-table arithmetic, and asks what happens when professional incomes and mortgages are exposed at the same time.
Inside, you’ll find:
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The roles AI is quietly hollowing out
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Why the 'junior grind' is disappearing
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The 80/20 Collapse in professional work
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A practical audit of your exposure and runway
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The human capabilities that still matter
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Routes towards trades, portfolio work and community enterprise
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What AI’s gains mean for housing, welfare and inequality.
This is a clear-eyed notebook from inside the transition, focused on judgement, resilience and building work with more human value. It will let you know where you stand, strengthen your options, and help you make your next move before the ladder disappears beneath you.
Chris Simmance is a UK-based entrepreneur on three sides of the AI displacement question. He runs Orca, an AI operations platform that automates the work of a PA, social media manager, CRM administrator, research analyst, and junior strategist for a fraction of the cost. He previously co-founded Enterprise Skills, an EdTech platform measuring eight employer-valued human capabilities through business simulations, used in UK schools. His advisory practice at OMG Center works with professional services principals on AI, strategy, and growth; the honest conclusion is increasingly that businesses need fewer people. The Next Rung is his first trade book. Four earlier industry titles were self-published alongside his consulting work. It draws on all three roles, the builder, the educator, and the advisor, to map what is coming and what can be done about it.
Chris is based in Hampshire, UK.
List of Figures ix
Preface xi
Prologue: The Builder’s Dilemma xv
Part 1: The Ground Moves 1
Chapter 1: The Absorption Problem 3
Chapter 2: The Orchestrator 15
Chapter 3: What’s Being Displaced (And What Isn’t) 25
Chapter 4: The Quiet Squeeze 37
Chapter 5: The Numbers 45
Part 2: The Breaking 55
Chapter 6: Critical Mass 57
Chapter 7: The Mortgage Problem 67
Chapter 8: The World Breaks Differently 79
Chapter 9: Flashpoints 93
Part 3: The Reshaping 101
Chapter 10: The Trough and the Turn 103
Chapter 11: What Work Becomes 115
Chapter 12: The New Institutions 127
Chapter 13: The Classroom of the Future 139
Part 4: The Choices 153
Chapter 14: The Honest Audit 155
Chapter 15: Positioning, Not Predicting 167
Part 5: After the Ladder 179
Chapter 16: The Prosperity That Wasn’t 181
Chapter 17: The Question We’re Really Asking 191
Notes 203
Acknowledgements 213
Appendix A: A Note on Method 215
Appendix B: Further Reading 217
Appendix C: The Honest Audit Questions 221
About the Author 224
Glossary 225
Index 229