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Technicians and associate professionals · code 3257

Environmental and occupational health inspectors and associates

Environmental and occupational health inspectors and associates investigate the implementation of rules and regulations relating to environmental factors that may affect human health, safety in the workplace, and safety of processes for the production of goods and services. They may implement and evaluate programmes to restore or improve safety and sanitary conditions under the supervision of a health professional. Tasks include - (a) advising employers’ and workers’ representatives on the implementation of governmental and other rules and regulations concerning occupational safety and the working environment; (b) inspecting places of work to ensure that the working environment, machinery and equipment conform to governmental and other rules, regulations and standards related to sanitation and/or occupational and environmental health and safety; (c) giving advice on environmental sanitary problems and techniques; (d) inspecting places of work and, by interviews, observations and other means, obtaining information about work practices and accidents to determine compliance with safety rules and regulations; (e) inspecting areas of production, processing, transport, handling, storage and sale of products to ensure conformity with governmental and other rules, regulations and standards; (f) advising enterprises and the general public on the implementation of governmental and other rules and regulations concerning hygiene, sanitation, purity and grading of primary products, food, drugs, cosmetics and similar goods; (g) inspecting establishments to ensure that they conform to governmental and other rules and regulations concerning emission of pollutants and disposal of dangerous wastes; (h) initiating action to maintain or improve hygiene and prevent pollution of water, air, food or soil; (i) promoting preventive and corrective measures such as control of disease-carrying organisms and of harmful substances in the air, hygienic food handling, proper disposal of waste and cleaning of public places; (j) estimating quantities and costs of materials and labour required for health, safety and sanitation remediation projects; Examples of the occupations classified here: - Food sanitation and safety inspector - Health inspector - Occupational health and safety inspector - Pollution inspector - Product safety inspector - Sanitarian - Sanitary inspector Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Environmental health officer - 2263 - Occupational health and safety adviser - 2263 - Occupational hygienist - 2263 - Radiation protection expert - 2263

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 190 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • food safety inspector
  • occupational health and safety inspector
  • food regulatory advisor
  • transport health and safety inspector
  • industrial waste inspector
  • environmental health inspector

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

75.8
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 24.2 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 24.2 = 75.8

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

52.6
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 7 US jobs , so treat it as rough

33.1
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 32.3 · hand skill 28.7 · cramped spaces 38.3 · 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 52.6 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 28.3, while the average is 24.2. 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. 28.3

    Advising enterprises and the general public on the implementation of government and other rules and regulations concerning hygiene, sanitation, purity and grading of primary products, food, drugs, cosmetics and similar goods

    Low
  2. 28

    Giving advice on environmental sanitary problems and techniques

    Low
  3. 25

    Inspecting places of work to ensure that the working environment, machinery and equipment conform to government and other rules, regulations and standards related to sanitation and/or occupational and environmental health and safety

    Low
  4. 25

    Estimating quantities and costs of materials and labour required for health, safety and sanitation remediation projects

    Low
  5. 24.8

    Inspecting areas of production, processing, transport, handling, storage and sale of products to ensure conformity with government and other rules, regulations and standards

    Very Low
  6. 24.8

    Inspecting establishments to ensure that they conform to government and other rules and regulations concerning emission of pollutants and disposal of dangerous wastes

    Very Low
  7. 24.5

    Advising employers’ and workers’ representatives on the implementation of government and other rules and regulations concerning occupational safety and the working environment

    Very Low
  8. 24.5

    Inspecting places of work and, by interviews, observations and other means, obtaining information about work practices and accidents to determine compliance with safety rules and regulations

    Very Low
  9. 23.5

    Promoting preventive and corrective measures such as control of disease carrying organisms and of harmful substances in the air, hygienic food handling, proper disposal of waste and cleaning of public places

    Very Low
  10. 14.1

    Initiating action to maintain or improve hygiene and prevent pollution of water, air, food or soil

    Very Low

10 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.

4 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

AI helps you
68.5
AI does it for you
36.8

Helping wins by 31.7 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 2513, 3113, 3126, 5995

Compared with similar jobs

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