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Technicians and associate professionals · code 3512

Information and communications technology user support technicians

AI can answer 'have you tried turning it off and on again'. Fixing the laptop is still you.

AI could take a fair chunk of five of the nine tasks, including digging through manuals for fixes and helping developers. Installing and repairing hardware it barely touches.

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

Information and communications technology user support technicians provide technical assistance to users, either directly or by telephone, email or other electronic means, including diagnosing and resolving issues and problems with software, hardware, computer peripheral equipment, networks, databases and the Internet, and providing guidance and support in the deployment, installation and maintenance of systems. Tasks include - (a) answering user inquiries regarding software or hardware operation to resolve problems; (b) entering commands and observing system functioning to verify correct operations and detect errors; (c) installing and performing minor repairs to hardware, software or peripheral equipment, following design or installation specifications; (d) overseeing the daily performance of communications and computer systems; (e) setting up equipment for employee use and performing or ensuring proper installation of cables, operating systems or appropriate software; (f) maintaining records of daily data communication transactions, problems and remedial actions taken, or installation activities; (g) emulating or reproducing technical problems encountered by users; (h) consulting user guides, technical manuals and other documents to research and implement solutions; (i) assisting applications programmers, systems developers and other ICT professionals to develop and test ICT products and services. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Communications assistant (ICT) - Computer database assistant - Computer help desk operator - Computer programming assistant - Computer systems analysis assistant

  • ICT help desk manager
  • ICT help desk agent
  • ICT security technician
  • ICT technician

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

53 / 100

Changing significantly

AI could do a real share of the everyday tasks. The job is changing shape, not vanishing.

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: Exposed: Gradient 2

363 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 9 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 47 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 47 = 53.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Exposed: Gradient 2”: A good share of the tasks are affected.

This job rates 36.8 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.

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Information and communications technology user support technicians 53

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.

  • Answering user questions.
  • Researching fixes.
  • Logging tickets and actions.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Hardware repairs.
  • Setting up equipment.
  • Tricky problems bots can't solve.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • AI helpdesk bots.
  • Cyber security support.
  • Managing AI tools for staff.

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: Medium

53 could do without you

It could take over some of the work, and help with more. It could help with 69 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Lower

37 how hands-on

Not much of this job needs hands, so the robot can sit this one out.

So could a robot do the physical part?

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.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 30 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

37 How
hands-on
30 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Less than half hands-on

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, matched to one US job .

finger skill 41.1 · hand skill 32.1 · cramped spaces 17.5 · averaged · rule: hands-on under 50

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 67, against an average of 47. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 67

    Consulting user guides, technical manuals and other documents to research and implement solutions

    Medium
  2. 64

    Assisting applications programmers, systems developers and other ICT professionals to develop and test ICT products and services.

    Medium
  3. 63

    Answering user inquiries regarding software or hardware operation to resolve problems

    Medium
  4. 57

    Maintaining records of daily data communication transactions, problems and remedial actions taken, or installation activities.

    Medium
  5. 55

    Emulating or reproducing technical problems encountered by users

    Medium
  6. 47

    Overseeing the daily performance of communications and computer systems

    Low
  7. 30

    Entering commands and observing system functioning to verify correct operations and detect errors

    Low
  8. 27

    Setting up equipment for employee use and performing or ensuring proper installation of cables, operating systems or appropriate software

    Low
  9. 14

    Installing and performing minor repairs to hardware, software or peripheral equipment, following design or installation specifications

    Very Low

9 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
69
AI does it for you
53

Sidekick wins, by 16 points.

How good a match is this?

One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 3131

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?

Out of every 100 conversations

34
66

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. This job makes up 2.17% of the conversations.

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 IT support technicians be worried?

Short answer: not worried, but paying attention. The job is changing.

Much of the helpdesk is exposed. Researching solutions, supporting developers, answering queries, records and reproducing problems are rated Medium; monitoring and setting up equipment are Low; hardware repairs rate Very Low. AI support bots take on first-line queries.

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

How are the neighbours doing?

There are 82 jobs in the “Technicians and associate professionals” family, averaging 66. This one is below the family average.

Pit this against any other job →