Skip to content
man bot
Compare

Professionals · code 2151

Electrical engineers

AI can model the grid. Signing off a power system is still an engineer's job.

Four of the six tasks are mostly out of AI's reach, mainly designing power and motor systems. Specifying installations and planning repairs it barely touches.

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

Electrical engineers conduct research and advise on, design and direct the construction and operation of electrical systems, components, motors and equipment, and advise on and direct their functioning, maintenance and repair, or study and advise on technological aspects of electrical engineering materials, products and processes. Tasks include - (a) advising on and designing power stations and systems which generate, transmit and distribute electrical power; (b) supervising, controlling and monitoring the operation of electrical generation, transmission and distribution systems; (c) advising on and designing systems for electrical motors, electrical traction and other equipment, or electrical domestic appliances; (d) specifying electrical installation and application in industrial and other buildings and objects; (e) establishing control standards and procedures to monitor performance and safety of electrical generating and distribution systems, motors and equipment; (f) determining manufacturing methods for electrical systems, as well as maintenance and repair of existing electrical systems, motors and equipment. Examples of the occupations classified here - Electrical engineer - Electric power generation engineer - Electromechanical engineer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Nuclear power generation engineer - 2149 - Electronics engineer - 2152 - Broadcast engineer - 2153 - Telecommunications engineers - 2153

  • electrical engineer

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

69 / 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

253 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 6 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 31.4 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 31.4 = 68.6.

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?

Electrical engineers 69

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.

  • Power system modelling and simulation.
  • Design calculations.
  • Monitoring system performance.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Accountable design decisions.
  • Safety standards.
  • Solving problems on real systems.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Grid upgrades for renewables.
  • EV charging and battery storage.
  • Data centre power systems.

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 71 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 29 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

30 How
hands-on
29 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, matched to one US job .

finger skill 30.3 · hand skill 30.3 · cramped spaces 25.2 · 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 44, 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. 44

    Advising on and designing power stations and systems which generate, transmit and distribute electrical power

    Low
  2. 36

    Advising on and designing systems for electrical motors, electrical traction and other equipment, or electrical domestic appliances

    Low
  3. 35

    Establishing control standards and procedures to monitor performance and safety of electrical generating and distribution systems, motors and equipment

    Low
  4. 30

    Supervising, controlling and monitoring the operation of electrical generation, transmission and distribution systems

    Low
  5. 23

    Specifying electrical installation and application in industrial and other buildings and objects

    Very Low
  6. 21

    Determining manufacturing methods for electrical systems, as well as maintenance and repair of existing electrical systems, motors and equipment.

    Very Low

6 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
33

Sidekick wins, by 38 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 2333, 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?

Tiny sample alert This job makes up 0.02% of all the conversations: a tiny slice. People using AI for a job isn't the same as AI being able to do it.

Out of every 100 conversations

41
59

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.

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 electrical engineers be worried?

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

No. Designing power systems and equipment, setting standards and supervising operations are the most exposed tasks, all Low; specifying installations and manufacturing methods rate Very Low. Simulation and design tools speed things up, and electrification is keeping engineers busy.

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 →