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Managers · code 1112

Senior government officials

AI can summarise the briefing papers. Advising a minister is still judgement.

Reviewing and signing off documents is the one task AI could take a fair chunk of. Advising on budgets and laws is mostly out of its reach, and coordinating with other senior officials it barely touches.

What they actually do (and what else they get called)

Senior government officials advise governments on policy matters, oversee the interpretation and implementation of government policies and legislation by government departments and agencies, represent their country abroad and act on its behalf, or carry out similar tasks in intergovernmental organizations. They plan, organize, direct, control and evaluate the overall activities of municipal or local, regional and national government departments, boards, agencies or commissions in accordance with legislation and policies established by government and legislative bodies. Tasks include - (a) advising national, state, regional or local governments and legislators on policy matters; (b) advising on the preparation of government budgets, laws and regulations, including amendments; (c) establishing objectives for government departments or agencies in accordance with government legislation and policy; (d) formulating or approving and evaluating programmes and procedures for the implementation of government policies in conjunction or consultation with government, (e) recommending, reviewing, evaluating and approving documents, briefs and reports submitted by middle managers and senior staff members; (f) ensuring appropriate systems and procedures are developed and implemented to provide budgetary control; (g) coordinating activities with other senior government managers and officials; (h) making presentations to legislative and other government committees regarding policies, programmes or budgets; (i) overseeing the interpretation and implementation of government policies and legislation by government departments and agencies. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Ambassador - City administrator - Civil service commissioner - Consul-general - Director-general (government department) - Director-general (intergovernmental organization) - Fire commissioner - Inspector-general (police) - Permanent head (government department) - Police chief constable - Police commissioner - Secretary-general (government administration) - Under-secretary (government) Note Chief executives of government-owned enterprises are included in Unit Group 1120: Managing Directors and Chief Executives.

  • central bank governor
  • police commissioner
  • secretary general
  • diplomat
  • consul
  • fire commissioner
  • public administration manager

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

62 / 100

Mostly holds up against AI

AI can take a few chores off your plate, but most of the day is still yours.

Not the odds you keep your job. It's how much of the everyday work still needs a person, out of 100.

← Robot's turf Human's turf →

The ILO's official verdict: Minimal Exposure

307 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 9 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 37.7 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 37.7 = 62.3.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Minimal Exposure”: A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't.

This job rates 29.7 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Senior government officials 62

v

Go on, try your partner's job. Or your sibling's. We won't tell.

Man v Bot

Where the bot helps, and where the human wins

Bot

What AI takes

The routine stuff. You may not miss it.

  • Reviewing and summarising documents.
  • Drafting briefings.
  • Budget analysis.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Advising ministers.
  • Coordinating across government.
  • Accountability for delivery.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Government use of AI.
  • AI regulation.
  • Public trust and transparency.

Written by a human, from the ILO's task ratings below. Yes, we see the irony. Read it as one person's take.

Meet your two rivals

They're not the same machine. AI software can only reach the parts of a job done on a screen or in words. A chatbot can't climb a ladder. A robot might, one day, if it doesn't fall off.

The AI

Lives in a screen. Never had to fix a boiler.

Threat level: Low

31 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 68 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Lower

30 how hands-on

Not much of this job needs hands, so the robot can sit this one out.

So could a robot do the physical part?

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 10 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

30 How
hands-on
10 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Less than half hands-on

The small print

They aren't a robot score, and nothing on this page is. Nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to put a number on it. These are the closest thing we have: how hands-on the job is, and how much fiddly, cramped work it takes, which is what Frey and Osborne found hardest for machines.

From O*NET, averaged across 4 US jobs .

finger skill 11.6 · hand skill 7.1 · cramped spaces 9.6 · averaged · rule: hands-on under 50

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.8-observed-use measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

The job, task by task

Every job is really a bundle of tasks. Here's this one unpacked, with how much of each AI could do, out of 100. The score is the average, and averages can hide a lot.

AI's favourite task here scores 54, against an average of 38. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 54

    Recommending, reviewing, evaluating and approving documents, briefs and reports submitted by middle managers and senior staff members

    Medium
  2. 44

    Advising on the preparation of government budgets, laws and regulations, including amendments

    Low
  3. 39

    Ensuring appropriate systems and procedures are developed and implemented to provide budgetary control

    Low
  4. 38

    Making presentations to legislative and other government committees regarding policies programmes or budgets

    Low
  5. 36

    Overseeing the interpretation and implementation of government policies and legislation by government departments and agencies.

    Low
  6. 36

    Establishing objectives for government departments or agencies in accordance with government legislation and policy

    Low
  7. 36

    Formulating or approving and evaluating programmes and procedures for the implementation of government policies in conjunction or consultation with government

    Low
  8. 35

    Advising national, state, regional or local governments and legislators on policy matters

    Low
  9. 24

    Coordinating activities with other senior government managers and officials

    Very Low

9 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Sidekick or replacement?

A tool that makes you faster is a very different thing from one that does the task while you watch. Jobs and Skills Australia measured the two separately, which is handy.

AI helps you
68
AI does it for you
31

Sidekick wins, by 37 points.

How good a match is this?

3 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 1111, 1112, 1399

Meanwhile, in real life…

Everything else here is about what AI could do. This is what people actually did. When they asked Claude for help with this kind of work, did they hand the whole task over, or roll their sleeves up and work through it together?

Out of every 100 conversations

52
48

worked through it together handed it over

The small print

Anthropic publishes this about its own product, and it doesn't feed into any score here. These are people who use Claude, not workers in general, so little use here doesn't mean AI can't reach the job. This job makes up 0.37% of the conversations.

The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 4 of them. We've combined them, counting each by how often it comes up in the conversations, so the busiest one counts most.

These two add up to 100. The bars elsewhere on the page don't, because each is scored on its own, so we don't put them side by side.

observed use Anthropic Economic Index release 2026-06-26, period beginning 2026-05-01 data 0.8-observed-use 2026-05-01 · Anthropic, about its own product

So, should senior government officials be worried?

Short answer: not much. Some of the chores will change, and good riddance.

Parts of the job are changing. Reviewing documents is rated Medium; advising on budgets and laws, budgetary control, presentations, implementing policy, objectives and programmes are Low; coordinating with other officials rates Very Low. AI speeds up reading and drafting; advice and accountability stay human.

Worth remembering: we score tasks, not jobs. When AI takes on a task, the job usually reshuffles around it rather than vanishing.

Where this job could lead

None of the new jobs we've written up start from here yet. Could be you're the first. See the jobs AI is creating →

How are the neighbours doing?

There are 30 jobs in the “Managers” family, averaging 64. This one is below the family average.

Pit this against any other job →