Professionals · code 2342

Early childhood educators

AI can plan a week of activities. It can't notice that a four-year-old is struggling.

AI barely touches seven of the nine tasks, like creative play and helping little ones learn to eat, dress and use the toilet. Planning activities and checking on welfare are mostly out of its reach too.

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

Early childhood educators promote the social, physical, and intellectual development of children below primary school age through the provision of educational and play activities. Tasks include - (a) planning and organizing individual and group activities designed to facilitate the development of children’s motor, cooperative and social skills, confidence and understanding; (b) promoting language development through storytelling, role play, songs, rhymes and informal conversations and discussions; (c) leading children in activities that provide opportunities for creative expression through the media of art, dramatic play, music and physical fitness; (d) observing children in order to evaluate progress and to detect signs of developmental, emotional or health-related problems; (e) observing and assessing nutritional health, welfare and safety needs of students and identifying factors which may impede students’ progress; (f) supervising children’s activities to ensure safety and resolve conflicts; (g) guiding and assisting children in the development of proper eating, dressing and toilet habits; (h) discussing progress or problems of children with parents and other staff members and identifying appropriate actions and referrals to other services; (i) establishing and maintaining collaborative relationships with other service providers working with young children. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Early childhood educator - Pre-school teacher Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Child care centre manager - 1341 - Child care worker - 5311

early years teacher
Montessori school teacher
Freinet school teacher

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

79 / 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

154 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 20.8 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 20.8 = 79.2.

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 27.1 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?

Early childhood educators 79

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.

Planning activities and resources.
Observations and progress records.
Parent communication.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

Guiding children's development.
Noticing signs of problems.
Building trust with families.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

Digital learning journals.
More focus on early intervention.
Guiding young children's use of screens.

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

27 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 64 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Lower

27 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.

27 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 2 US jobs .

finger skill 27.8 · hand skill 22.3 · cramped spaces 8.6 · 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 28, against an average of 21. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

28
Planning and organizing individual and group activities designed to facilitate the development of children's motor skills, cooperative and social skills, confidence and understanding

Low
25
Observing and assessing nutritional health, welfare and safety needs of students and identifying factors which may impede students' progress

Low
25
Discussing progress or problems of children with parents and other staff members and identifying appropriate actions and referrals to other services

Very Low
23
Establishing and maintaining collaborative relationships with other service providers working with young children.

Very Low
22
Promoting language development through story-telling, role-play, songs, rhymes and informal conversations and discussions

Very Low
19
Observing children in order to evaluate progress and to detect signs of developmental, emotional or health related problems

Very Low
18
Supervising children's activities to ensure safety and resolve conflicts

Very Low
18
Leading children in activities that provide opportunities for creative expression through the media of art, dramatic play, music and physical fitness

Very Low
11
Guiding and assisting children in the development of proper eating, dressing and toilet habits

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: 64
AI does it for you: 27

Sidekick wins, by 37 points.

How good a match is this?

One Australian job matches, but only partly: not everyone in it does this job. 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 2411

So, should early years teachers be worried?

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

No. The most exposed tasks are planning activities and assessing children's needs, both Low; storytelling, supervising and guiding development rate Very Low. AI can help with planning and paperwork; the relationships and care 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 →