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Technicians and associate professionals · code 3118

Draughtspersons

Draughtspersons prepare technical drawings, maps and illustrations from sketches, measurements and other data, and copy final drawings and paintings onto printing plates. Tasks include - (a) preparing and revising working drawings from sketches and specifications prepared by engineers and designers for the manufacture, installation and erection of machinery and equipment or for the construction, modification, maintenance and repair of buildings, dams, bridges, roads and other architectural and civil engineering projects; (b) operating computer-aided design and draughting equipment to create, modify and generate hard-copy and digital representations of working drawings; (c) operating digitizing table or similar equipment to transfer hard-copy representation of working drawings, maps and other curves to digital form; (d) preparing and revising illustrations for reference works, brochures and technical manuals dealing with the assembly, installation, operation, maintenance and repair of machinery and other equipment and goods; (e) copying drawings and paintings onto stone or metal plates for printing; (f) preparing wiring diagrams, circuit board assembly diagrams and layout drawings used for manufacture, installation and repair of electrical equipment in factories, power plants and buildings; (g) creating detailed working diagrams of machinery and mechanical devices, including dimensions, fastening methods and other engineering information; (h) arranging for completed drawings to be reproduced for use as working drawings. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Draughtsperson - Technical illustrator Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Cartographer - 2165 - Surveyor - 2165

A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't. It ranks 274 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • drafter
  • printed circuit board designer
  • clothing CAD technician
  • 3D printing technician

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

65.2
Holds up
against AI Minimal Exposure

AI could take on 34.8 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 34.8 = 65.2

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

26.5
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 4 US jobs

23.2
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 35.3 · hand skill 31.2 · cramped spaces 3.2 · 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 26.5 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 47.5, while the average is 34.8. 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. 47.5

    Operating computer-aided design and drafting equipment to create, modify and generate hard-copy and digital representations of working drawings

    Low
  2. 46.3

    Operating digitizing table or similar equipment to transfer hard-copy representation of working drawings, maps and other curves to digital form

    Low
  3. 38.8

    Arranging for completed drawings to be reproduced for use as working drawings.

    Low
  4. 38

    Preparing and revising working drawings from sketches and specifications prepared by engineers and designers for the manufacture, installation and erection of machinery and equipment or for the construction, modification, maintenance and repair of buildings, dams, bridges, roads and other architectural and civil engineering projects

    Low
  5. 33.8

    Creating detailed working diagrams of machinery and mechanical devices, including dimensions, fastening methods and other engineering information

    Low
  6. 31.5

    Preparing and revising illustrations for reference works, brochures and technical manuals dealing with the assembly, installation, operation, maintenance and repair of machinery and other equipment and goods

    Low
  7. 27.5

    Preparing wiring diagrams, circuit board assembly diagrams and layout drawings used for manufacture, installation and repair of electrical equipment in factories, power plants, and buildings

    Low
  8. 14.8

    Copying drawings and paintings onto stone or metal plates for printing

    Very Low

8 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.

6 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

AI helps you
71
AI does it for you
43.5

Helping wins by 27.5 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 3121, 3122, 3123, 3124, 3125, 3129

Compared with similar jobs

There are 82 jobs in the “Technicians and associate professionals” group, averaging 65.4. This one is below that.