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Professionals · code 2634

Psychologists

Psychologists research into and study the mental processes and behaviour of human beings as individuals or in groups, and apply this knowledge to promote personal, social, educational or occupational adjustment and development. Tasks include - (a) planning and carrying out tests to measure mental, physical and other characteristics such as intelligence, abilities, aptitudes, potentialities, etc., interpreting and evaluating results, and providing advice; (b) analysing the effect of heredity, social, occupational and other factors on individual thought and behaviour; (c) conducting counselling or therapeutic interviews with individuals and groups and providing follow-up services; (d) maintaining required contacts, such as those with family members, educational authorities or employers, and recommending possible solutions to, and treatment of, problems; (e) studying psychological factors in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental illnesses and emotional or personality disorders, and conferring with related professionals; (f) preparing scholarly papers and reports; (g) formulating achievement, diagnostic and predictive tests for use by teachers in planning methods and content of instruction; (h) conducting surveys and research studies on job design, work groups, morale, motivation, supervision and management; (i) developing theories, models and methods to interpret and describe human behaviour. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Clinical psychologist - Educational psychologist - Organizational psychologist - Psychotherapist - Sports psychologist Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Psychiatrist - 2212

The mildest of the ILO’s four “exposed” groups. It ranks 323 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • polygraph examiner
  • psychologist

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

60.9
Holds up
against AI Exposed: Gradient 1

AI could take on 39.1 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 39.1 = 60.9

That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.

12.1
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 5 US jobs

7.9
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 11.3 · hand skill 7.8 · cramped spaces 4.8 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on under 50 Less than half hands-on

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.

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 0.7-work-setting measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

What this number leaves out This job rates 12.1 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.

The tasks behind the score

The score is the average of these. A job is really a bundle of tasks, and an average can hide how uneven that bundle is.

The task AI could do most of scores 68, while the average is 39.1. A big gap means some of this job is wide open to AI and some of it barely at all. That's quite different from a job where everything sits somewhere in the middle, even when the averages match.

  1. 68

    Conducting surveys and research studies on job design, work groups, morale, motivation, supervision and management

    Medium
  2. 54

    Preparing scholarly papers and reports

    Medium
  3. 37

    Developing theories, models and methods to interpret and describe human behaviour.

    Low
  4. 36.5

    Analysing the effect of heredity, social, occupational and other factors on individual thought and behaviour

    Low
  5. 36.5

    Formulating achievement, diagnostic and predictive tests for use by teachers in planning methods and content of instruction

    Low
  6. 35

    Planning and carrying out tests to measure mental, physical and other characteristics such as intelligence, abilities, aptitudes, potentialities, etc., interpreting and evaluating results, and providing advice

    Low
  7. 30

    Studying psychological factors in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental illnesses and emotional or personality disorders, and conferring with related professionals

    Low
  8. 28.5

    Conducting counselling or therapeutic interviews with individuals and groups, and providing follow-up services

    Low
  9. 26

    Maintaining required contacts, such as those with family members, educational authorities or employers, and recommending possible solutions to, and treatment of, problems

    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 0.7-work-setting

Helped, or replaced?

The score above can't tell a tool that makes you faster from one that does the task instead of you. Jobs and Skills Australia looked at those two things separately, and this is their result, matched to this job.

One Australian job matches, but only partly: not everyone in it does this job. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

AI helps you
69
AI does it for you
43

Helping wins by 26 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 2723

Compared with similar jobs

There are 92 jobs in the “Professionals” group, averaging 61.3. This one is below that.