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Technicians and associate professionals · code 3152

Ships' deck officers and pilots

Ships’ deck officers and pilots command and navigate ships and similar vessels, and perform related functions on shore. Tasks include - (a) commanding and navigating ship or similar vessel at sea or on inland waterways; (b) controlling and participating in deck and bridge watch activities; (c) navigating vessels into and out of ports and through channels, straits and other waters where special knowledge is required; (d) ensuring safe loading and unloading of cargo and observance of safety regulations and procedures by crew and passengers; (e) performing technical supervision of maintenance and repair of ships to ensure compliance with specifications and regulations; (f) applying knowledge of principles and practices relating to ships’ operation and navigation in order to identify and solve problems arising in the course of their work; (g) ordering ships’ stores, recruiting crew as required and maintaining records of operations; (h) transmitting and receiving routine and emergency information with shore stations and other ships. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Pilot (ship) - Ship’s captain - Skipper (yacht) Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Coastal fishery skipper - 6222 - Trawler skipper - 6223 - Sailor - 8350

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 233 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • helmsman
  • ship captain
  • deck officer
  • skipper
  • maritime pilot

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

71.2
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 28.8 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 28.8 = 71.2

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

67.9
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 3 US jobs

37.2
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 38.4 · hand skill 38.8 · cramped spaces 34.5 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on 50+ · fiddly under 39.4 Hands-on, less fiddly work

Less fine handwork and fewer cramped spaces than a typical hands-on job. That clears one hurdle for machines. It doesn't mean machines are doing this work yet.

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 67.9 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 53.8, while the average is 28.8. 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. 53.8

    Transmitting and receiving routine and emergency information with shore stations and other ships.

    Medium
  2. 31.8

    Ordering ship’s stores and recruiting crew as required and maintaining record of operations

    Low
  3. 29

    Applying knowledge of principles and practices relating to ship’s operation and navigation in order to identify and solve problems arising in the course of their work

    Low
  4. 27

    Navigating vessels into and out of ports and through channels, straits and other waters where special knowledge is required

    Low
  5. 25.3

    Performing technical supervision of maintenance and repair of ship to ensure compliance with specifications and regulations

    Low
  6. 23.5

    Controlling and participating in deck and bridge-watch activities

    Very Low
  7. 21.3

    Commanding and navigating ship or similar vessel at sea or on inland waterways

    Very Low
  8. 18.8

    Ensuring safe loading and unloading of cargo and observance of safety regulations and procedures by crew and passengers

    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.

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

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 65.3. This one is above that.