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Technicians and associate professionals · code 3152

Ships' deck officers and pilots

AI can handle the routine radio traffic. Bringing a ship into a crowded port is still a pilot's job.

Radio contact with the shore and other ships is the one task AI could take a fair chunk of. Commanding and navigating the ship and loading it safely it barely touches.

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

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

  • 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 / 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

233 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 8 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 28.8 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 28.8 = 71.2.

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 68 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?

Ships' deck officers and pilots 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.

  • Routine ship-to-shore communications.
  • Stores ordering and records.
  • Navigation and collision-avoidance systems.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Commanding and navigating a ship.
  • Safe loading and passenger safety.
  • Decisions in bad weather and emergencies.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Remote and autonomous vessel trials.
  • Lower-emission fuels and routes.
  • Cyber security at sea.

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

26 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 63 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

68 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?

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.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 37 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

68 How
hands-on
37 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, less fiddly work

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 3 US jobs .

finger skill 38.4 · hand skill 38.8 · cramped spaces 34.5 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · fiddly under 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 54, 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. 54

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

    Medium
  2. 32

    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

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

    Low
  6. 24

    Controlling and participating in deck and bridge-watch activities

    Very Low
  7. 21

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

    Very Low
  8. 19

    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 0.8-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
63
AI does it for you
26

Sidekick wins, by 37 points.

How good a match is this?

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

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 2312

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

37
63

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 ships' officers and pilots be worried?

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

Some of it. Routine communications are rated Medium, and ordering stores, problem-solving, pilotage and maintenance supervision are Low; watchkeeping, commanding the ship and cargo safety rate Very Low. Navigation automation keeps improving; command stays with people.

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 →