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Professionals · code 2144

Mechanical engineers

AI can explore a thousand design options. Deciding which one is safe is still an engineer's job.

Six of the seven tasks are mostly out of AI's reach, mainly advising on and designing machinery, aircraft parts and kit. Designing engines and motors it barely touches.

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

Mechanical engineers conduct research; advise on, design, and direct production of machines, aircraft, ships, machinery and industrial plant, equipment and systems; advise on and direct their functioning, maintenance and repair; or study and advise on mechanical aspects of particular materials, products or processes. Tasks include - (a) advising on and designing machinery and tools for manufacturing, mining, construction, agricultural, and other industrial purposes; (b) advising on and designing steam, internal combustion and other non-electric motors and engines used for propulsion of railway locomotives, road vehicles or aircraft, or for driving industrial or other machinery; (c) advising on and designing: hulls, superstructures and propulsion systems of ships; mechanical plant and equipment for the release, control and utilization of energy; heating, ventilation and refrigeration systems, steering gear, pumps, and other mechanical equipment; (d) advising on and designing airframes, undercarriages and other equipment for aircraft as well as suspension systems, brakes, vehicle bodies and other components of road vehicles; (e) advising on and designing non-electrical parts of apparatus or products such as word processors, computers, precision instruments, cameras and projectors; (f) establishing control standards and procedures to ensure efficient functioning and safety of machines, machinery, tools, motors, engines, industrial plant, equipment or systems; (g) ensuring that equipment, operation and maintenance comply with design specifications and safety standards. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Aeronautical engineer - Engine designer - Marine architect - Marine engineer - Mechanical engineer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Ships’ engineer - 3151

  • mechanical engineer

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

68 / 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

259 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 32.3 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 32.3 = 67.7.

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 37.3 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?

Mechanical engineers 68

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.

  • Generative design and simulation.
  • Calculations and documentation.
  • Compliance checks.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Accountable design decisions.
  • Testing real products.
  • Solving problems in manufacturing.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Robotics and automation engineering.
  • Electric vehicles and energy systems.
  • Digital twins.

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

35 could do without you

It could take over some of the work, and help with more. It could help with 72 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Lower

37 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 24 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

37 How
hands-on
24 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 6 US jobs .

finger skill 28.2 · hand skill 17.1 · cramped spaces 27.5 · 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 44, against an average of 32. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 44

    Advising on and designing non-electrical parts of apparatus or products such as word processors, computers, precision instruments, cameras and projectors

    Low
  2. 36

    Advising on and designing airframes, undercarriages and other equipment for aircraft as well as suspension systems, brakes, vehicle bodies and other components of road vehicles

    Low
  3. 34

    Advising on and designing machinery and tools for manufacturing, mining, construction, agricultural, and other industrial purposes

    Low
  4. 34

    Advising on and designing: hulls, superstructures and propulsion systems of ships; mechanical plant and equipment for the release, control and utilization of energy; heating, ventilation and refrigeration systems, steering gear, pumps and other mechanical equipment

    Low
  5. 30

    Establishing control standards and procedures to ensure efficient functioning and safety of machines, machinery, tools, motors, engines, industrial plant, equipment, or systems

    Low
  6. 28

    Ensuring that equipment, operation and maintenance comply with design specifications and safety standards.

    Low
  7. 22

    Advising on and designing steam, internal combustion and other non-electric motors and engines used for propulsion of railway locomotives, road vehicles or aircraft, or for driving industrial or other machinery

    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
72
AI does it for you
35

Sidekick wins, by 37 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 2335, 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

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 6 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 mechanical engineers be worried?

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

No. Designing products, vehicles, machinery and ships and setting standards are the most exposed tasks, all Low; designing engines rates Very Low. Generative design and simulation speed things up; engineering judgement 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 92 jobs in the “Professionals” family, averaging 61. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →