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Professionals · code 2142

Civil engineers

AI can run a thousand design options. Someone still has to sign one off.

Six of the seven tasks are mostly out of AI's reach: designing structures, choosing methods and materials, and directing the build. Research is where it gets closest; maintaining existing structures is furthest away.

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

Civil engineers conduct research, advise on, design, and direct construction; manage the operation and maintenance of civil engineering structures; or study and advise on technological aspects of particular materials. Tasks include - (a) conducting research and developing new or improved theories and methods related to civil engineering; (b) advising on and designing structures such as bridges, dams, docks, roads, airports, railways, canals, pipelines, waste-disposal and flood-control systems, and industrial and other large buildings; (c) determining and specifying construction methods, materials and quality standards, and directing construction work; (d) establishing control systems to ensure efficient functioning of structures as well as safety and environmental protection; (e) organizing and directing maintenance and repair of existing civil engineering structures; (f) analysing the behaviour of soil and rock when placed under pressure by proposed structures and designing structural foundations; (g) analysing the stability of structures and testing the behaviour and durability of materials used in their construction. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Civil engineer - Geotechnical engineer - Structural engineer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Civil engineering project manager - 1323 - Geoscientist - 2114 - Metallurgist - 2146 - Mining engineer - 2146 - Town and traffic planners - 2164

  • civil engineer

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

70 / 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: Not Exposed

243 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 7 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 30.2 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 30.2 = 69.8.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Not Exposed”: None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count.

This job rates 20.1 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?

Civil engineers 70

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.

  • Drafting, modelling and calculation.
  • Specifications and tender packs.
  • Testing many more design options.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Signing off designs.
  • Site judgement when ground conditions surprise.
  • Weighing cost, risk and safety.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Verifying generated designs.
  • Climate resilience and retrofit.
  • Explaining automated results to clients and regulators.

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

33 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 73 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Lower

20 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 12 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

20 How
hands-on
12 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 3 US jobs .

finger skill 19.6 · hand skill 2.4 · cramped spaces 12.9 · 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 42, against an average of 30. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 42

    Conducting research and developing new or improved theories and methods related to civil engineering

    Low
  2. 32

    Advising on and designing structures such as bridges, dams, docks, roads, airports, railways, canals, pipelines, waste-disposal and flood-control systems, and industrial and other large buildings

    Low
  3. 31

    Determining and specifying construction methods, materials and quality standards, and directing construction work

    Low
  4. 30

    Analysing the behaviour of soil and rock when placed under pressure by proposed structures and designing structural foundations

    Low
  5. 28

    Analysing the stability of structures and testing the behaviour and durability of materials used in their construction.

    Low
  6. 26

    Establishing control systems to ensure efficient functioning of structures as well as safety and environmental protection

    Low
  7. 23

    Organising and directing maintenance and repair of existing civil engineering structures

    Very Low

7 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
73
AI does it for you
33

Sidekick wins, by 40 points.

How good a match is this?

2 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 2332, 2339

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

58
42

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 0.1% of the conversations.

The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 3 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 civil engineers be worried?

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

No. Research, design, methods, soil analysis, stability and control systems are the most exposed tasks, all Low; maintenance and repair rate Very Low. Drafting and modelling are getting faster; the signature and site judgement stay with a licensed engineer.

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 92 jobs in the “Professionals” family, averaging 61. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →

A closer look

There is a written profile for a job in this group.