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Managers · code 1349

Professional services managers not elsewhere classified

AI can do the admin and the budget. Running a service well is still leadership.

Budgets and reports are the one task AI could take a fair chunk of. Planning services, working with other agencies and managing staff are mostly out of its reach.

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

This unit group covers managers who plan, direct, coordinate and evaluate the provision of specialized professional and technical services and are not classified in Minor Group 121: Business Services and Administration Managers, or elsewhere in Minor Group 134: Professional Services Managers. For instance, managers responsible for the provision of policing, correctional, library, legal and fire services are classified here. In such cases tasks would include - (a) providing overall direction and management for a service, facility, organization or centre; (b) developing, implementing and monitoring procedures, policies and standards for staff; (c) directing, supervising and evaluating the work activities of professional, technical, clerical, service, maintenance and other personnel; (d) monitoring and evaluating resources devoted to the provision of services; (e) controlling administrative operations such as budget planning, report preparation, and expenditure on supplies, equipment and services; (f) planning, directing and coordinating the provision of services; (g) coordinating cooperation with other service provision agencies in the same or related fields; (h) managing budgets, controlling expenditure and ensuring the efficient use of resources; (i) overseeing the selection, training and performance of staff. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Archives manager - Art gallery manager - Correctional services manager - Legal service manager - Library manager - Museum manager - Police superintendent - Prison governor Note Professional services managers are responsible for planning, directing and coordinating the provision of specialized professional and technical services. Specialized qualifications and extensive experience relevant to one or more occupations classified in Major Group 2: Professionals, or Major Group 3: Technicians and Associate Professionals, are usually required.

  • artistic director
  • rescue centre manager
  • energy manager
  • archive manager
  • airspace manager
  • service manager
  • medical laboratory manager
  • publications coordinator
  • chief fire officer
  • aviation communications and frequency coordination manager
  • aviation surveillance and code coordination manager
  • court administrator
  • book publisher
  • front of house manager
  • library manager
  • airside safety manager
  • translation agency manager
  • interpretation agency manager
  • environmental protection manager
  • sport administrator
  • museum director
  • correctional services manager
  • commercial art gallery 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

315 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 38.4 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 38.4 = 61.6.

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 30.9 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?

Professional services managers not elsewhere classified 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.

  • Budgets and reports.
  • Monitoring resources.
  • Policies and procedures.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Leading and supporting staff.
  • Decisions about services.
  • Working with partners.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Deploying AI in services.
  • Data-driven service planning.
  • Energy and sustainability targets.

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: Medium

41 could do without you

It could take over some of the work, and help with more. It could help with 71 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Lower

31 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 16 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

31 How
hands-on
16 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 10 US jobs , so treat it as rough.

finger skill 19.6 · hand skill 15.8 · cramped spaces 12.7 · 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 56, 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. 56

    Controlling administrative operations such as budget planning, report preparation, and expenditure on supplies, equipment and services

    Medium
  2. 44

    Planning, directing and coordinating the provision of services

    Low
  3. 41

    Monitoring and evaluating resources devoted to the provision of services

    Low
  4. 37

    Directing, supervising and evaluating the work activities of professional technical, clerical, service, maintenance, and other personnel

    Low
  5. 36

    Developing, implementing and monitoring procedures, policies and standards for staff

    Low
  6. 35

    Providing overall direction and management for a service, facility, organization or centre

    Low
  7. 34

    Managing budgets, controlling expenditure and ensuring the efficient use of resources

    Low
  8. 33

    Coordinating cooperation with other service provision agencies in the same or related fields

    Low
  9. 32

    Overseeing the selection, training and performance of staff.

    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
71
AI does it for you
41

Sidekick wins, by 30 points.

How good a match is this?

4 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 1332, 1391, 1399, 2246

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

51
49

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 0.65% of the conversations.

The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 8 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 service managers be worried?

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

The admin is moving. Budgets and reports are rated Medium; planning services, monitoring resources, supervising, policies, direction, budgets, cooperation and staffing are Low. AI takes on reporting; leadership stays 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 →