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Technicians and associate professionals · code 3421

Athletes and sports players

Athletes and sport players participate in competitive sporting events. They train and compete, either individually or as part of a team, in their chosen sport. Tasks include - (a) participating in competitive sporting events; (b) participating in regular practice and training sessions and undertaking private training to maintain the required standard of fitness and skill; (c) undertaking sports promotional activities and media interviews; (d) maintaining a high degree of expertise in a particular sport; (e) deciding on strategies in consultation with coaches; (f) assessing other competitors and conditions at venues; (g) competing in sporting events; (h) adhering to the rules and regulations associated with a specific sport. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Athlete - Bicycle racer - Boxer - Chess player - Footballer - Golfer - Hockey player - Jockey - Poker player - Racing driver - Skier - Tennis player - Wrestler

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 178 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • professional athlete

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

77.2
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 22.8 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 22.8 = 77.2

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

59.9
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

34.9
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 42.9 · hand skill 46.4 · cramped spaces 15.5 · 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 59.9 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 40.3, while the average is 22.8. 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. 40.3

    Undertaking sports promotional activities and media interviews

    Low
  2. 33.5

    Deciding on strategies in consultation with coaches

    Low
  3. 25

    Maintaining a high degree of expertise in a particular sport

    Low
  4. 23.5

    Assessing other competitors and conditions at venues

    Very Low
  5. 23.5

    Adhering to the rules and regulations associated with a specific sport.

    Very Low
  6. 21.5

    Participating in regular practice and training sessions and undertaking private training to maintain the required standard of fitness and skill

    Very Low
  7. 8.4

    Participating in competitive sporting events

    Very Low
  8. 7

    Competing in sporting events

    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
53
AI does it for you
19

Helping wins by 34 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 4524

Compared with similar jobs

There are 82 jobs in the “Technicians and associate professionals” group, averaging 65.2. This one is above that.