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Service and sales workers · code 5312

Teachers' aides

AI can make the worksheets. It can't help a child who's struggling to sit still.

Preparing and copying teaching materials is the one task AI could take a fair chunk of. It barely touches five of the seven, including helping children with learning difficulties and social skills.

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

Teachers’ aides perform non-teaching duties to assist teaching staff, and provide care and supervision for children in schools and pre-schools. Tasks include - (a) demonstrating, supervising and participating in activities that enhance the physical, social, emotional and intellectual development of children in schools and pre-schools; (b) preparing indoor and outdoor areas for learning and recreational activities; (c) assisting children with intellectual, physical, behavioural and other learning difficulties with their studies; (d) assisting children individually to learn social skills; (e) assisting with preparing teaching materials, and copying and collating written and printed material; (f) operating audiovisual equipment, computers and other teaching aides; (g) distributing and collecting lesson material. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Pre-school assistant - Teacher’s assistant

  • special educational needs assistant
  • early years teaching assistant
  • primary school teaching assistant
  • secondary school teaching assistant

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

76 / 100

Mostly holds up against AI

AI can take a few chores off your plate, but most of the day is still yours.

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: Not Exposed

189 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 7 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 24.1 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 24.1 = 75.9.

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 29.1 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?

Teachers' aides 76

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.

  • Preparing and copying materials.
  • Setting up classroom technology.
  • Worksheets and resources.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Supporting children who are struggling.
  • Helping with social and emotional skills.
  • Keeping activities safe.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Using AI tutoring tools with pupils.
  • Supporting children with additional needs.
  • Digital learning platforms.

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

31 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 65 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Lower

29 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 15 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

29 How
hands-on
15 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, averaged across 2 US jobs .

finger skill 17 · hand skill 16 · cramped spaces 12.1 · 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 54, against an average of 24. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 54

    Assisting with preparing teaching materials, and copying and collating written and printed material

    Medium
  2. 32

    Operating audio-visual equipment, computers and other teaching aides

    Low
  3. 20

    Distributing and collecting lesson material.

    Very Low
  4. 18

    Demonstrating, supervising and participating in activities that enhance the physical, social, emotional and intellectual development of children in schools and pre-schools

    Very Low
  5. 17

    Preparing indoor and outdoor areas for learning and recreational activities

    Very Low
  6. 15

    Assisting children with intellectual, physical, behavioural and other learning difficulties with their studies

    Very Low
  7. 14

    Assisting children individually to learn social skills

    Very Low

7 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
65
AI does it for you
31

Sidekick wins, by 34 points.

How good a match is this?

One Australian job matches, but only partly: not everyone in it does this job. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 4221

So, should teaching assistants be worried?

Short answer: not much. Some of the chores will change, and good riddance.

The preparation is moving. Preparing and copying teaching materials is rated Medium, and using classroom technology is Low; supporting children, including those with additional needs, rates Very Low. AI can take a lot of the prep; the one-to-one support stays human.

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.

Pit this against any other job →