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Technicians and associate professionals · code 3153

Aircraft pilots and related associate professionals

Aircraft pilots and related associate professionals control the operation of mechanical, electrical and electronic equipment, in order to navigate aircraft for transporting passengers, mail and freight and perform related pre-flight and in-flight tasks. Tasks include - (a) flying and navigating aircraft in accordance with established control and operating procedures; (b) preparing and submitting flight plans or examining standard flight plans; (c) controlling the operation of mechanical, electrical and electronic equipment and ensuring that all instruments and controls work properly; (d) applying knowledge of principles and practices of flying in order to identify and solve problems arising in the course of their work; (e) examining maintenance records and conducting inspections to ensure that aircraft are mechanically sound, maintenance has been performed and that all equipment is operational; (f) signing necessary certificates and maintaining official records of flight; (g) obtaining briefings and clearances before flights and maintaining contact with air traffic or flight control during flight. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Aerial crop sprayer - Flight engineer - Flying instructor - Navigator (flight) - Pilot (aircraft)

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 216 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • aircraft pilot
  • aircraft maintenance engineer
  • astronaut

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

72.6
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 27.4 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 27.4 = 72.6

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

66
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 4 US jobs

40.2
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 39.9 · hand skill 41.3 · cramped spaces 39.4 · 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 66 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 35, while the average is 27.4. 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. 35

    Preparing and submitting flight plan or examining standard flight plan

    Low
  2. 32.5

    Signing necessary certificates and maintaining official records of flight

    Low
  3. 30.6

    Obtaining briefings and clearances before flights and maintaining contact with air traffic or flight control during flight.

    Low
  4. 25.8

    Controlling the operation of mechanical, electrical and electronic equipment and ensuring that all instruments and controls work properly

    Low
  5. 24.4

    Flying and navigating aircraft in accordance with established control and operating procedures

    Very Low
  6. 21.8

    Applying knowledge of principles and practices of flying in order to identify and solve problems arising in the course of their work

    Very Low
  7. 21.8

    Examining maintenance records and conducting inspections to ensure that aircraft are mechanically sound, maintenance has been performed and that all equipment is operational.

    Very Low

7 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
60
AI does it for you
31

Helping wins by 29 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 2311

Compared with similar jobs

There are 82 jobs in the “Technicians and associate professionals” group, averaging 65.3. This one is above that.