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Service and sales workers · code 5164

Pet groomers and animal care workers

Pet groomers and animal care workers feed, handle, train and groom animals and assist veterinarians, animal health technologists and technicians in veterinary facilities, animal shelters, breeding and boarding kennels, zoos, laboratories, retail pet shops, riding schools, dog training schools, pet grooming and similar establishments. Tasks include - (a) bathing and feeding animals; (b) leading or carrying animals to treatment rooms and holding them during treatment; (c) cleaning and sterilizing veterinary surgical instruments; (d) labelling drugs, chemicals and other pharmaceutical preparations and replenishing stock; (e) sterilizing bottles, beakers and other equipment; (f) cleaning, organizing and disinfecting animal quarters such as pens, stables, cages and yards, and animal equipment such as saddles and bridles; (g) collecting and recording animal information such as weight, size, physical condition, treatments received, medications given and food intake; (h) training animals to develop and maintain desired behaviours for competition, entertainment, obedience, security, riding and other activities; (i) grooming animals by performing tasks such as washing, brushing, clipping and trimming coats, cutting nails and cleaning ears. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Animal attendant - Dog trainer - Horse breaker - Veterinary aide - Zoo keeper

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 61 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • zoo section leader
  • animal shelter worker
  • game keeper
  • animal care attendant
  • dog breeder
  • animal handler
  • cattle pedicure
  • pet sitter
  • kennel supervisor
  • animal welfare inspector

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

85.9
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 14.1 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 14.1 = 85.9

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

53.6
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 6 US jobs

35.7
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 35.9 · hand skill 35.3 · cramped spaces 35.8 · 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 53.6 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 25.3, while the average is 14.1. 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. 25.3

    Labelling drugs, chemicals and other pharmaceutical preparations and replenishing stock

    Low
  2. 17

    Training animals to develop and maintain desired behaviours for competition, entertainment, obedience, security, riding and other activities

    Very Low
  3. 16.5

    Sterilising bottles, beakers and other equipment

    Very Low
  4. 16.5

    Collecting and recording animal information such as weight, size, physical condition, treatments received, medications given and food intake

    Very Low
  5. 14.5

    Leading or carrying animals to treatment room and holding them during treatment

    Very Low
  6. 11.4

    Bathing and feeding animals

    Very Low
  7. 10

    Cleaning and sterilising veterinary surgical instruments

    Very Low
  8. 7.8

    Cleaning, organizing, and disinfecting animal quarters such as pens, stables, cages and yards, and animal equipment such as saddles and bridles

    Very Low
  9. 7.8

    Grooming animals by performing tasks such as washing, brushing, clipping, and trimming coats, cutting nails and cleaning ears.

    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 0.7-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.

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

AI helps you
55
AI does it for you
25.5

Helping wins by 29.5 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 3611, 3613

Compared with similar jobs

There are 39 jobs in the “Service and sales workers” group, averaging 74.1. This one is above that.