Professionals · code 2221
Nursing professionals
AI can write up the care plan. It can't notice that your patient looks wrong.
Hands-on care, like giving medication and dressing wounds, AI barely touches. Research, health education and answering patients' questions are where it gets closest, and even those are mostly out of its reach.
What they actually do (and what else they get called)
Nursing professionals provide treatment, support and care services for people who are in need of nursing care due to the effects of ageing, injury, illness or other physical or mental impairment, or potential risks to health. They assume responsibility for the planning and management of the care of patients, including the supervision of other health care workers, working autonomously or in teams with medical doctors and others in the practical application of preventive and curative measures. Tasks include - (a) planning, providing and evaluating nursing care for patients according to the practice and standards of modern nursing; (b) coordinating the care of patients in consultation with other health professionals and members of health teams; (c) developing and implementing care plans for the biological, social and psychological treatment of patients in collaboration with other health professionals; (d) planning and providing personal care, treatments and therapies including administering medications, and monitoring responses to treatment or care plan; (e) cleaning wounds and applying surgical dressings and bandages; (f) monitoring pain and discomfort experienced by patients and alleviating pain using a variety of therapies, including the use of painkilling drugs; (g) planning and participating in health education programmes, health promotion and nurse education activities in clinical and community settings; (h) answering questions from patients and families and providing information about prevention of ill-health, treatment and care; (i) supervising and coordinating the work of other nursing, health and personal care workers; (j) conducting research on nursing practices and procedures and disseminating findings such as through scientific papers and reports. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Clinical nurse consultant - District nurse - Nurse anaesthetist - Nurse educator - Nurse practitioner - Operating theatre nurse - Professional nurse - Public health nurse - Specialist nurse Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Professional midwife - 2222 - Paramedical practitioners - 2240 - University lecturer - 2310 - Vocational education teacher - 2320 - Associate professional nurse - 3221 - Associate professional midwife - 3222 - Nursing aide (clinic or hospital) - 5321 Notes The distinction between professional and associate professional nurses should be made on the basis of the nature of the work performed in relation to the tasks specified in this definition. The qualifications held by individuals or that predominate in the country are not the main factor in making this distinction, as training arrangements for nurses vary widely between countries and have varied over time within countries. Nurses who combine nursing education or research with clinical nursing practice are classified in Unit Group 2221: Nursing Professionals. Nursing researchers who participate in biomedical research using living organisms and do not undertake clinical nursing practice are classified in Unit Group 2131: Biologists, Botanists, Zoologists and Related Professionals.
- nurse responsible for general care
- advanced nurse practitioner
- specialist nurse
Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.
75 / 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.
The ILO's official verdict: Not Exposed
201 of 427 for holding up against AI
Not quite your week? Make it yours ↓
Why this score?
The ILO rated each of this job's 10 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 25.2 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 25.2 = 74.8.
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 45.3 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?
Nursing professionals 75
vGo 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.
- Care plans and documentation.
- Patient information and education.
- Coordinating care across teams.
Man
What people still do better
Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.
- Hands-on nursing care.
- Managing pain and treatment.
- Noticing when a patient changes.
Both
What's arriving
New work that only exists because the AI does.
- Working with AI decision support.
- Remote patient monitoring.
- Nurse-led clinics.
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
31 could do without you
It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 68 of 100.
The robot
The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.
How much it matters here: Some
45 how hands-on
A fair part of this job is hands-on, so robots would be needed for that part, not just software.
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 40 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.
hands-on
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 7 US jobs , so treat it as rough.
finger skill 40.1 · hand skill 37.2 · cramped spaces 41.6 · 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 46, against an average of 25. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.
- 46
Conducting research on nursing practices and procedures and disseminating findings such as through scientific papers and reports.
Low - 37
Answering questions from patients and families and providing information about prevention of ill-health, treatment and care
Low - 36
Planning and participating in health education programmes, health promotion and nurse education activities in clinical and community settings
Low - 30
Developing and implementing care plans for the biological, social and psychological treatment of patients in collaboration with other health professionals
Low - 28
Coordinating the care of patients in consultation with other health professionals and members of health teams
Low - 26
Supervising and coordinating the work of other nursing, health and personal care workers
Low - 21
Planning, providing and evaluating nursing care for patients according to the practice and standards of modern nursing
Very Low - 12
Monitoring pain and discomfort experienced by patients and alleviating pain using a variety of therapies, including the use of painkilling drugs
Very Low - 11
Planning and providing personal care, treatments and therapies including administering medications, and monitoring responses to treatment or care plan
Very Low - 6
Cleaning wounds and applying surgical dressings and bandages
Very Low
10 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
New · the weekly task audit
Your week, your score
The score above assumes nurses spend the same time on every task. You don't. Slide each task to how much of your week it takes, and we'll re-weight the same ILO ratings to fit your job.
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
Your score
75 / 100
Same as the job as a whole, so far.
Move the sliders to make it yours.
The job as a whole: 75 / 100
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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
- 68
- AI does it for you
- 31
Sidekick wins, by 37 points.
How good a match is this?
3 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 2542, 2543, 2544
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
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 0.22% of the conversations.
The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 7 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 nurses be worried?
Short answer: not much. Some of the chores will change, and good riddance.
No. The most exposed tasks, like research, patient information and care planning, rate Low; hands-on nursing care rates Very Low. AI will take on documentation and some planning, which could give time back to patients.
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
How are the neighbours doing?
There are 92 jobs in the “Professionals” family, averaging 61. This one is above the family average.
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- Early childhood educators 79
- Visual artists 79
- Paramedical practitioners 77
- Optometrists and ophthalmic opticians 76
- Audiologists and speech therapists 76
- Primary school teachers 74
- Specialist medical practitioners 73
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- Musicians, singers and composers 72
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- Physiotherapists 72
- Special needs teachers 72
- Farming, forestry and fisheries advis… 72
- Generalist medical practitioners 71
- Mining engineers, metallurgists and r… 71
- Secondary education teachers 70
- Midwifery professionals 70
- Civil engineers 70
- Engineering professionals not elsewhe… 70
- Judges 69
- Electrical engineers 69
- Actors 69
A closer look
There is a written profile for a job in this group.