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Professionals · code 2149

Engineering professionals not elsewhere classified

AI can explore the design space. Being accountable for a nuclear safety system is still an engineer's job.

Eight of the nine tasks are mostly out of AI's reach, in fields from optical instruments to biomedical and marine engineering. Designing explosive ordnance it barely touches. Thankfully.

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

This unit group covers engineering professionals not classified elsewhere in Minor Group 214: Engineering Professionals (excluding Electrotechnology) or in Minor Group 215: Electrotechnology Engineers. For instance, the group includes those who conduct research, advise on or develop engineering procedures and solutions concerning workplace safety, biomedical engineering, optics, materials, nuclear power generation and explosives. In such cases tasks would include - (a) applying knowledge of engineering to the design, development and evaluation of biological and health systems and products such as artificial organs, prostheses, and instrumentation; (b) designing devices used in various medical procedures and imaging systems such as magnetic resonance imaging, and devices for automating insulin injections or controlling body functions; (c) designing components of optical instruments such as lenses, microscopes, telescopes, lasers, optical disc systems and other equipment that utilize the properties of light; (d) designing, testing, and coordinating the development of explosive ordnance material to meet military procurement specifications; (e) designing and overseeing the construction and operation of nuclear reactors and power plants and nuclear fuels reprocessing and reclamation systems; (f) designing and developing nuclear equipment such as reactor cores, radiation shielding and associated instrumentation and control mechanisms; (g) assessing damage and providing calculations for marine salvage operations; (h) studying and advising on engineering aspects of particular manufacturing processes, such as those related to glass, ceramics, textiles, leather products, wood and printing; (i) identifying potential hazards and introducing safety procedures and devices. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Biomedical engineer - Explosive ordnance engineer - Marine salvage engineer - Materials engineer - Nuclear power generation engineer - Optical engineer - Quantity surveyor - Safety engineer - Time and motion study engineer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Industrial and production engineers - 2141 - Environmental engineers - 2143 - Surveyor - 2165 Notes: It should be noted that, while they are appropriately classified in this unit group with other engineering professionals, biomedical engineers are considered to be an integral part of the health workforce alongside those occupations classified in Sub-major Group 22: Health Professionals, and others classified in a number of other unit groups in Major Group 2: Professionals.

  • energy engineer
  • materials engineer
  • quantity surveyor
  • acoustical engineer
  • robotics engineer
  • dismantling engineer
  • commissioning engineer
  • textile, leather and footwear researcher
  • optical engineer
  • patent engineer
  • bioengineer
  • health and safety engineer
  • application engineer
  • test engineer
  • aviation ground systems 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

244 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 30.5 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 30.5 = 69.5.

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 29.8 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?

Engineering professionals not elsewhere classified 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.

  • Design exploration and simulation.
  • Calculations and analysis.
  • Documentation and specifications.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Accountable design decisions.
  • Safety and hazard judgement.
  • Testing and validating real systems.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Engineering AI and robotic systems.
  • Medical device innovation.
  • Nuclear and energy transition projects.

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

34 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 72 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 20 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

30 How
hands-on
20 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 13 US jobs , so treat it as rough.

finger skill 23.9 · hand skill 17.4 · cramped spaces 18.2 · 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 39, against an average of 31. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 39

    Designing components of optical instruments such as lenses, microscopes, telescopes, lasers, optical disc systems and other equipment that utilize the properties of light

    Low
  2. 38

    Applying knowledge of engineering to the design, development and evaluation of biological and health systems and products such as artificial organs, prostheses and instrumentation

    Low
  3. 37

    Studying and advising on engineering aspects of particular manufacturing processes, such as those related to glass, ceramics, textiles, leather products, wood and printing

    Low
  4. 35

    Designing and overseeing construction and operation of nuclear reactors and power plants and nuclear fuels reprocessing and reclamation systems

    Low
  5. 32

    Designing and developing nuclear equipment such as reactor cores, radiation shielding and associated instrumentation and control mechanisms

    Low
  6. 31

    Designing devices used in various medical procedures and imaging systems such as magnetic resonance imaging, and devices for automating insulin injections or controlling body functions

    Low
  7. 27

    Identifying potential hazards and introducing safety procedures and devices.

    Low
  8. 25

    Assessing damage and providing calculations for marine salvage operations

    Low
  9. 13

    Designing, testing, and coordinating the development of explosive ordnance material to meet military procurement specifications

    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
72
AI does it for you
34

Sidekick wins, by 37 points.

How good a match is this?

5 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 2331, 2332, 2335, 2339, 3126

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

56
44

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 0.51% of the conversations.

The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 11 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 specialist engineers be worried?

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

Parts of the job are changing. Designing optical, medical, nuclear and process systems, hazard analysis and salvage calculations are the most exposed tasks, all Low; ordnance design rates Very Low. Simulation and generative design tools are powerful; 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 →