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Technicians and associate professionals · code 3151

Ships' engineers

Ships’ engineers control and participate in the operation, maintenance and repair of mechanical, electrical and electronic equipment and machinery on board ship, or perform related supporting functions on shore. Tasks include - (a) controlling and participating in the operation, maintenance and repair of mechanical, electrical and electronic equipment and machinery on board ship; (b) ordering fuel and other engine-room department stores and maintaining records of operations; (c) performing technical supervision of the installation, maintenance and repair of ships’ machinery and equipment to ensure compliance with specifications and regulations; (d) inspecting and conducting maintenance and emergency repairs to engines, machinery and auxiliary equipment; (e) standing engine room watch, monitoring and noting performance of engines, machinery and auxiliary equipment. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Ships’ engineer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Marine engineer - 2144

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 180 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • fisheries refrigeration engineer
  • ship assistant engineer
  • ship duty engineer
  • marine chief engineer

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

76.9
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 23.1 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 23.1 = 76.9

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

68.3
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 3 US jobs

41.8
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 39.3 · hand skill 38 · cramped spaces 48.2 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on 50+ · fiddly 39.4+ Hands-on, fiddly work in tight spaces

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.

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

This number is probably too high

This score only looks at AI tools like chatbots. It doesn't look at robots at all — and this job rates 68.3 out of 100 for how hands-on it is, which is exactly where robots come in.

Have a look at the tasks below and judge for yourself. The ILO scored them low because a chatbot can't do them. Whether a machine with hands could is a different question, and we can't answer it yet.

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 31.3, while the average is 23.1. 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. 31.3

    Ordering fuel and other engine-room department stores and maintaining record of operations

    Low
  2. 23.8

    Performing technical supervision of the installation, maintenance and repair of ship’s machinery and equipment to ensure compliance with specifications and regulations

    Very Low
  3. 23.3

    Standing engine room watch, monitoring and noting performance of engines, machinery and auxiliary equipment.

    Very Low
  4. 20.3

    Controlling and participating in the operation, maintenance and repair of mechanical, electrical and electronic equipment and machinery on board ship

    Very Low
  5. 17.3

    Inspecting and conducting maintenance and emergency repairs to engines, machinery and auxiliary equipment

    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 0.7-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 this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.

AI helps you
63
AI does it for you
26

Helping wins by 37 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 2312

Compared with similar jobs

There are 82 jobs in the “Technicians and associate professionals” group, averaging 65.2. This one is above that.