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Technicians and associate professionals · code 3121

Mining supervisors

AI can compile the shift reports. Leading a crew underground is still leadership.

Four of the five tasks are mostly out of AI's reach, including reports for managers and planning work schedules. Supervising the crews doing the digging it barely touches.

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

Mining supervisors oversee mining and quarrying operations and directly supervise and coordinate the activities of miners working in underground and surface mines and quarries. Tasks include - (a) supervising and coordinating the activities of workers who extract minerals and other natural deposits from the earth, and who operate underground conveyances or heavy equipment in surface mines and quarries; (b) establishing methods to meet work schedules and recommending measures to mining managers to improve productivity; (c) working with managerial and technical personnel, other departments and contractors to resolve operational problems and coordinate activities; (d) providing reports and other information to mining managers about all aspects of mining or quarrying operations; (e) determining staffing and material needs for the mine or quarry. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Mine deputy - Mine supervisor - Mine undermanager - Quarry supervisor Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Mine manager - 1322 - Mine inspector - 3117 - Miner - 8111 - Quarrier - 8111

  • mine supervisor

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

71 / 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

232 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 5 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 28.7 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 28.7 = 71.3.

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.

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Pinch of salt: this number is probably too rosy

It only asks what AI software could do, and this job is 69 out of 100 hands-on. A chatbot can't do that part. A robot might, one day, and nobody measures how close that is.

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Mining supervisors 71

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.

  • Operational reports.
  • Scheduling and productivity planning.
  • Staffing and materials planning.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Supervising crews on site.
  • Safety leadership.
  • Solving problems underground.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Remote and automated mining equipment.
  • Real-time safety monitoring.
  • Critical minerals projects.

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 67 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

69 how hands-on

Most of this job needs hands, a body or turning up. That's robot territory, and nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to give you a number. We won't make one up.

So could a robot do the physical part?

More fine handwork, and more time in cramped or awkward spots, than a typical hands-on job. That is exactly what machines find hardest: they do best in tidy, predictable places.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 42 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

69 How
hands-on
42 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, fiddly work in tight spaces

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 41.1 · hand skill 42 · cramped spaces 41.6 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · fiddly 39.4+

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 40, against an average of 29. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 40

    Providing reports and other information to mining managers about all aspects of mining or quarrying operations

    Low
  2. 33

    Establishing methods to meet work schedules and recommending measures to mining managers to improve productivity

    Low
  3. 27

    Determining staffing and material needs for the mine or quarry.

    Low
  4. 26

    Working with managerial and technical personnel, other departments and contractors to resolve operational problems and coordinate activities

    Low
  5. 19

    Supervising and coordinating the activities of workers who extract minerals and other natural deposits from the earth, and who operate underground conveyances or heavy equipment in surface mines and quarries

    Very Low

5 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
67
AI does it for you
33

Sidekick wins, by 34 points.

How good a match is this?

One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 3129

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 0.03% of all the conversations: a tiny slice, mostly the paperwork rather than the work. People using AI for a job isn't the same as AI being able to do it.

Out of every 100 conversations

36
64

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.

The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 2 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 mining supervisors be worried?

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

Parts of it are changing. Reports, scheduling, staffing and coordinating with other teams are the most exposed tasks, all Low; supervising workers on site rates Very Low. Mine planning software takes on more of the office side; running crews safely stays 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 82 jobs in the “Technicians and associate professionals” family, averaging 65. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →