Service and sales workers · code 5141
Hairdressers
AI can recommend the haircut. Someone still has to hold the scissors.
Seven of the eight tasks happen with hands on a client's head, and AI barely touches any of them. The one it could take on is booking appointments and taking payment.
What they actually do (and what else they get called)
Hairdressers cut, style, colour, straighten and permanently wave hair, shave or trim facial hair and treat scalp conditions. Tasks include - (a) cutting, washing, tinting and waving hair; (b) shaving or trimming beards and moustaches; (c) giving scalp treatments; (d) fitting wigs according to customers’ requirements; (e) providing advice on hair care, beauty products and hairstyles; (f) styling hair into dreadlocks and braids and adding hair extensions; (g) arranging appointments and collecting payments; (h) cleaning work areas and sanitizing instruments. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Barber - Hair care specialist - Hairdresser - Hairstylist
- hairdresser
Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.
83 / 100
Strongly holds up against AI
Most of this job still needs an actual human. AI would mostly be making the tea.
Not the odds you keep your job. It's how much of the everyday work still needs a person, out of 100.
The ILO's official verdict: Not Exposed
99 of 427 for holding up against AI
Not quite your week? Make it yours ↓
Why this score?
The ILO rated each of this job's 8 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 17.3 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 17.3 = 82.7.
That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Not Exposed”: None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count.
This job rates 45.3 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?
Hairdressers 83
vGo 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.
- Booking appointments and taking payment.
- Reminders and marketing.
- Stock ordering.
Man
What people still do better
Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.
- Cutting, colouring and styling hair.
- Understanding what a client wants.
- A relationship built over years.
Both
What's arriving
New work that only exists because the AI does.
- Showing clients a style before cutting.
- Trends that move fast on social media.
- Running a small business with better tools.
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: Low
24 could do without you
It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 47 of 100.
The robot
The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.
How much it matters here: Some
45 how hands-on
A fair part of this job is hands-on, so robots would be needed for that part, not just software.
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 32 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.
hands-on
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, averaged across 5 US jobs .
finger skill 41.3 · hand skill 41.6 · cramped spaces 13.3 · 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 60, against an average of 17. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.
- 60
Arranging appointments and collecting payments
Medium - 22
Providing advice on hair care, beauty products and hairstyles
Very Low - 12
Fitting wigs according to customers’ requirements
Very Low - 12
Cleaning work areas and sanitizing instruments.
Very Low - 11
Styling hair into dreadlocks and braids and adding hair extensions
Very Low - 8
Cutting, washing, tinting and waving hair
Very Low - 7
Shaving or trimming beards and moustaches
Very Low - 7
Giving scalp treatment
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 0.8-observed-use
New · the weekly task audit
Your week, your score
The score above assumes hairdressers spend the same time on every task. You don't. Slide each task to how much of your week it takes, and we'll re-weight the same ILO ratings to fit your job.
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
Your score
83 / 100
Same as the job as a whole, so far.
Move the sliders to make it yours.
The job as a whole: 83 / 100
Link copied.
Nothing you enter leaves your browser. The link just carries your slider positions.
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
- 47
- AI does it for you
- 24
Sidekick wins, by 23 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 3911
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?
Tiny sample alert This job makes up 0.03% of all the conversations: a tiny slice. People using AI for a job isn't the same as AI being able to do it.
Out of every 100 conversations
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.
The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 3 of them. We've combined them, counting each by how often it comes up in the conversations, so the busiest one counts most.
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 hairdressers be worried?
Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.
No. The one task AI can take on is booking appointments and taking payment, rated Medium. Everything done with hands on a client's head rates Very Low. Online booking frees up time for the work people actually come in for.
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
None of the new jobs we've written up start from here yet. Could be you're the first. See the jobs AI is creating →
How are the neighbours doing?
There are 39 jobs in the “Service and sales workers” family, averaging 74. This one is above the family average.
- Prison guards 86
- Police officers 86
- Pet groomers and animal care workers 86
- Health care assistants 86
- Personal care workers in health servi… 85
- Undertakers and embalmers 83
- Beauticians and related workers 82
- Fire-fighters 82
- Cooks 82
- Child care workers 81
- Protective services workers not elsew… 80
- Domestic housekeepers 80
- Security guards 80
- Driving instructors 80
- Personal services workers not elsewhe… 79
- Travel attendants and travel stewards 79
- Companions and valets 78
- Cleaning and housekeeping supervisors… 78
- Street food salespersons 78
- Food service counter attendants 76
- Service station attendants 76
- Teachers' aides 76
- Home-based personal care workers 75
- Fashion and other models 75
- Transport conductors 75
- Bartenders 74
- Building caretakers 73
- Waiters 72
A closer look
There is a written profile for a job in this group.