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Technicians and associate professionals · code 3154

Air traffic controllers

Air traffic controllers direct aircraft movements in airspace and on the ground, using radio, radar and lighting systems, and provide information relevant to the operation of aircraft. Tasks include - (a) directing and controlling aircraft approaching and leaving airport and their movement on the ground; (b) directing and controlling aircraft operating in designated airspace sectors; (c) examining and approving flight plans; (d) informing flight crew and operations staff about weather conditions, operational facilities, flight plans and air traffic; (e) applying knowledge of principles and practices of air traffic control in order to identify and solve problems arising in the course of their work; (f) initiating and organizing emergency, search and rescue services and procedures; (g) directing activities of all aircraft and service vehicles on or near airport runways; (h) maintaining radio and telephone contact with adjacent control towers, terminal control units and other control centres, and coordinating the movement of aircraft into adjoining areas. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Air traffic controller

A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't. It ranks 250 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • flight operations officer
  • air traffic controller
  • aviation inspector

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

69
Holds up
against AI Minimal Exposure

AI could take on 31 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 31 = 69

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

39.2
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 3 US jobs

27.3
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 37.5 · hand skill 30.8 · cramped spaces 13.4 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on under 50 Less than half hands-on

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

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

What this number leaves out This job rates 39.2 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

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 50, while the average is 31. 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. 50

    Informing flight crew and operations staff about weather conditions, operational facilities, flight plans and air traffic

    Medium
  2. 32.5

    Maintaining radio and telephone contact with adjacent control towers, terminal control units and other control centres, and coordinating the movement of aircraft into adjoining areas.

    Low
  3. 32.3

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

    Low
  4. 30.3

    Examining and approving flight plans

    Low
  5. 30

    Directing and controlling aircraft approaching and leaving airport and their movement on the ground

    Low
  6. 28.3

    Directing and controlling aircraft operating in designated airspace sector

    Low
  7. 27.5

    Directing activities of all aircraft and service vehicles on or near airport runways

    Low
  8. 17.3

    Initiating and organizing emergency, search and rescue services and procedures

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

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.